"You must walk, Peter—run if you can. Come on!"
He almost dragged him into the darkness of the forest, and Peter began to use his legs. It made him feel better. But his teeth chattered and his body shook as if he had the ague. Two or three hundred yards in the shelter of the timber they came to an overturned spruce tree, and near this was a birch with festoons of loose bark hanging from it.
Donald McRae stripped off an armful of the bark, and one of Peter's blue hands fished out the precious bottle of matches from his pocket. Very soon the flames were leaping up joyously, and he felt their warmth entering into his body. He helped to gather wood. In a quarter of an hour there was a glow in his face, and the big backlog of pitch-filled cedar was a flaming furnace. Darkness settled heavily in the forest, and he was no longer afraid or uncomfortable as he continued to dry his clothes. His father, in a period between wood-gathering, cleaned his pipe and began to dry out some of his soaked tobacco. That was cheerful and inspiring. It always seemed chummier and more homelike to Peter when his father was smoking his pipe.
Later they broke off cedar and balsam boughs until they had a soft bed two feet deep within the warmth of the fire. When the last thread in his clothing was dry Peter crept into this bed. He had no idea of sleeping but made himself a comfortable nest and sat bright-eyed and watchful while his father rested with his back against the log and smoked.
A hundred times they had made camps together that were very much like this one. On hunting and fishing expeditions, and when berries were ripe, and on the trap lines, they had slept out many nights with boughs for a bed. But there had never been the thrill of tonight. The cumulative significance of what had happened was just beginning to find itself in Peter's head. This night was different from all other nights. The darkness which had gathered heavily about them was different, the fire did not seem as friendly, and his father, smoking his pipe, was changed. Always in their adventuring they had been in quest of something—fish or venison, berries or fur. Now something was after them. It was this slow process of mental and physical change from the hunter into the hunted, and its understanding, that was creeping into Peter's soul.
He loved night with its mystery of darkness, its stars and its moon, but now he could feel and hear it breathing secret plottings and danger. When the fire crackled too loudly or its flames leaped too high he shivered, fearing it would betray them. He wondered why his father remained in the light now that they were warm and dry, for there were safer hiding-places in the great pits of gloom that encompassed them. But he said nothing, feeling strangely that even to voice fear would bring reality upon them.
He watched his father, and the brightness in his eyes—something new and strange that lay in them—was like a stab to Donald McRae. In this hour he saw the boy's soul changing. Peter, at last, was beginning to build up the truth. Something terrible must have happened—somewhere—or the police would not be after his father. He had believed the police were omniscient, that they hunted only bad people. That was what they were for—to shut bad people in prisons, or hang them, or shoot them. And they were after his father!
The man saw these things in Peter's eyes and in his pale, thin face. And suddenly a revulsion of horror and of rage swept over Peter. If the police said his father was bad they were liars. He hated them, and if the chance came to him he would get even with them. He would beat out their lives with a club. He would kill them—if they didn't leave his father alone!
He said nothing. But he got out of his nest in the evergreen boughs and sat close to his father against the log, and Donald McRae put his arm around him and puffed hard at his pipe to keep the firelight from revealing what was in his eyes. The world might be against him, but Peter would be like this, his friend and pal to the last. He knew it, and thanked God.