She had formed the habit of talking to herself, for it had seemed at first, as she was left alone when her father went trapping or upon journeys for the Government, that by-and-by she would start at the sound of her own voice if she didn’t think aloud. So she was given to soliloquy, defying the old belief that people who talked to themselves were going mad. She laughed at that. She said that birds sang to themselves and didn’t go mad, and crickets chirruped, and frogs croaked, and owls hooted, and she would talk and not go crazy either. So she talked to herself and to Shako when she was alone.
How quiet it was inside when her light supper was eaten—bread and beans and pea-soup; she had got this from her French mother. Now she sat, her elbows on her knees, her chin on her hands, looking into the fire. Shako was at her feet upon the great musk-ox rug, which her father had got on one of his hunting trips in the Athabasca country years ago. It belonged as she belonged. It breathed of the life of the north-land, for the timbers of the hut were hewn cedar; the rough chimney, the seats, and the shelves on which a few books made a fair show beside the bright tins and the scanty crockery, were of pine; and the horned heads of deer and wapiti made pegs for coats and caps, and rests for guns and rifles. It was a place of comfort; it had an air of well-to-do thrift, even as the girl’s dress, though plain, was made of good, sound stuff, gray, with a touch of dark red to match the auburn of her hair.
A book lay open in her lap, but she had scarcely tried to read it. She had put it down after a few moments fixed upon it. It had sent her thoughts off into a world where her life had played a part too big for books, too deep for the plummet of any save those who had lived through the storm of life’s trials; and life when it is bitter to the young is bitter with an agony the old never know. At last she spoke to herself.
“She knows now! Now she knows what it is, how it feels—your heart like red-hot coals, and something in your head that’s like a turnscrew, and you want to die and can’t, for you’ve got to live and suffer!”
Again she was quiet, and only the dog’s heavy breathing, the snap of the fire, or the crack of a timber in the deadly frost broke the silence. Inside it was warm and bright and homelike; outside it was twenty degrees below zero, and like some vast tomb where life itself was congealed, and only the white stars, low, twinkling, and quizzical, lived—a life of sharp corrosion, not of fire.
Suddenly she raised her head and listened. The dog did the same. None but those whose lives are lived in lonely places can be so acute, so sensitive to sound. It was a feeling delicate and intense, the whole nature getting the vibration. You could have heard nothing, had you been there; none but one who was of the wide spaces could have done so. But the dog and the woman felt, and both strained toward the window. Again they heard, and started to their feet. It was far, far away, and still you could not have heard; but now they heard clearly—a cry in the night, a cry of pain and despair. The girl ran to the window and pulled aside the bearskin curtain which had completely shut out the light. Then she stirred the fire, threw a log upon it, snuffed the candles, hastily put on her moccasins, fur coat, wool cap, and gloves, and went to the door quickly, the dog at her heels. Opening it, she stepped out into the night.
“Qui va là? Who is it? Where?” she called, and strained toward the west. She thought it might be her father or Mickey the hired man, or both.
The answer came from the east, out of the homeless, neighborless, empty east—a cry, louder now. There were only stars, and the night was dark, though not deep dark. She sped along the prairie road as fast as she could, once or twice stopping to call aloud. In answer to her calls the voice sounded nearer and nearer. Now suddenly she left the trail and bore away northward. At last the voice was very near. Presently a figure appeared ahead, staggering toward her.
“Qui va là? Who is it?” she asked.
“Ba’tiste Caron,” was the reply in English, in a faint voice. She was beside him in an instant.