As the darkness settled the snow-covered surface of the river showed as a narrow white lane that terminated abruptly at each bend in a wall of intense blackness. Overhead a million stars glittered so brightly in the keen air that they seemed suspended just above the serried skyline of the bordering spruces. At the end of an hour it grew lighter. Through the openings between the flanking spruce thickets long naked ridges with their overhanging wind-carved snow-cornices were visible far back from the river. As they came in sight of the encampment the girl, who was traveling ahead, paused abruptly and with an exclamation of delight, pointed toward a distant ridge upon the clean-cut skyline of which the rim of the full moon showed in an ever widening segment of red. Brent stood close by her side, and together, in wrapt silence they watched the glowing orb rise clear of the ridge, watched its color pale until it hung cold and clean-cut in the night sky like a disk of burnished brass.
"Isn't it beautiful?" she breathed, and by the gentle pressure that accompanied the words, Brent suddenly knew that her bared hand was in his own, and that two mittens lay upon the snow at their feet.
"Wonderful," he whispered, as his eyes swept the unending panorama of lifeless barrens. "It is
as if we two were the only living beings in the whole dead world."
"Oh, I wish—I wish we were!" cried the girl, impulsively. And then: "No that is wrong! Other people—thousands and thousands of them—men, and women, and little babies—they all love to live."
"It is wonderful to live," breathed the man, "And to be standing here—with you—in the moonlight."
"Ah, the moonlight—is it the moonlight that makes me feel so strange—in here?" she raised her mittened hand and pressed it against her breast, "So strange and restless. I want to go—I do not know where—but, I want to do something big—to go some place—any place, but to go, and go, and go!" Her voice dropped suddenly, and Brent saw that her eyes were resting broodingly upon the straggling group of tepees and cabins. A dull square of light glowed sullenly from her own cabin window, and her voice sounded heavy and dull: "But, there is no place to go, and nothing to do, but hunt, and trap, and look for gold. Sometimes I wish I were dead. No I do not mean that—but, I wish I had never lived."
"Nonsense, girl! You love to live! Beautiful, strong, young—why, life is only just starting for—you." Brent had almost said "us."
"But, of what use is it all? Why should one love to live? I am an Indian—yet I hate the Indians—except Wananebish. We fight the hooch traders, yet the men get the hooch. It is no use. I learned
to love books at the mission—and there are no books. You are here—with you I am happy. But, if you do not find a strike, you will go away. Or, if we do not find gold, we will go. The Indians will return to the river and become hangers-on at the posts. It is all—no use!"