He did not sleep. He knew that he would not. For all through the day, during his dealing with Moir, on the night trail under the clean stars, his mind had been fighting to shut out a picture that persisted in running before his eyes. Now, alone in the star-lit night, with nothing to occupy him, the picture rushed into being, vivid and living. He could not shut it out. He could not escape it. It was the picture of Hattie MacGregor as he had seen her that morning with the pain and scorn upon her young, fine face. Her voice rang in his ears, the burning words as clear as if she stood by his side:
“I knew it was not a man. Living on your squaws! And you dared to talk to me—a decent woman!”
Reivers cursed and lay looking straight up at the white stars. From the tepee there came a sound that brought him up sitting. He listened, amazed and puzzled. It was Neopa sobbing because she had been torn from her young lover, Nawa, and in the plaint of her pain-racked tones there was something which recalled with accursed clearness the rich voice of Hattie MacGregor.
It was probably an hour after he had lain down that Reivers rose up and quietly hooked his strongest dogs to a sledge.
“Tillie! Neopa! Come out!” he whispered, throwing open the flap of the little tepee.
Neopa came, wet-faced and haggard, her wide-open eyes showing plainly that there had been no sleep for her that night. Tillie was rubbing her eyes sleepily, protesting against being wakened from comfortable slumber.
Reivers pointed northward up the river bed.
“Up there, on this river, one day’s march away, is the camp of your people, which we came from,” he whispered. “Do you both take this team and drive rapidly thither. Hold to the river-bed and keep away from the black spots where the water shows through the snow. Do not stop to rest or feed. You should reach your people in the middle of the afternoon. Then do you give Nawa this rifle. Tell him to shoot any white man who comes after you. Now go swiftly.”
Neopa looked at him with her fawn-like eyes large with incredibility and hope.
“Snow-Burner! Do you let me go back to Nawa?” she whispered.