Brent shook his head: "No, you do not understand. But, sometime you will understand. Sometime I think I shall have many things to tell you—and then I want you to understand."
The girl glanced at him wonderingly, as she threw a handful of tea into the pan. "You must sharpen some green sticks and cut pieces of meat," she said, "And we will eat our supper."
A silence fell upon them during the meal, a silence broken only by the roar of the wind that came to them as from afar, muffled as it was by its own freighting of snow. Hardly for a moment did Brent take his eyes from the girl. There was a great unwonted throbbing in his breast, that seemed to cry out to him to take the girl in his arms and
hold her tight against his pounding heart, and the next moment the joy of her was gone, and in its place was a dull heavy pain.
"Now, I know why I like you," said the girl, abruptly, as she finished her piece of venison.
"Yes?" smiled Brent, "And are you going to tell me?"
"It is because you are good." She continued, without noting the quick catch in the man's breath. "Men who hunt for gold are good. My father was good, and he died hunting for gold. Wananebish told me. It was years and years ago when I was a very little baby. I know from reading in books that many white men are good. But in the North they are bad. Unless they are of the police, or are priests, or factors. I had sworn to hate all white men who came into the North—but I forgot the men who hunt gold."
"I am glad you remembered them," answered Brent gravely. "I hope you are right."
"I am sleepy," announced the girl. "We cannot both sleep in this robe, for we have only one, and to keep warm it is necessary to roll up in it. One of us can sleep half the night while the other tends the fire, and then the other will sleep."
"You go to sleep," said Brent. "I will keep the fire going. I am not a bit sleepy. And besides, I have a whole world of thinking to do."