Half an hour later MacVeigh and Pelliter returned to the cabin. At the end of that time he was confident that the Eskimos would give them no further trouble and that they expected to leave Isobel in their possession. The chief, however, had given Billy to understand that they reserved the right to bury Deane.
Billy felt that he was now in a position where he would have to tell Pelliter some of the things that had happened to him on his return to Churchill. He had reported Deane’s death as having occurred weeks before as the result of a fall, and when he returned to Fort Churchill he knew that he would have to stick to that story. Unless Pelliter knew of Isobel, his love for her, and his own defiance of the Law in giving them their freedom, his comrade might let out the truth and ruin him.
In the cabin they sat down at the table. Pelliter’s arm was in a sling. His face was drawn and haggard and blackened by powder. He drew his revolver, emptied it of cartridges, and gave it to little Isobel to play with. He kept up his spirits among the Eskimos, but he made no effort to conceal his dejection now.
“I’ve lost her,” he said, looking at Billy. “You’re going to take her to her mother?”
“Yes.”
“It hurts. You don’t know how it’s goin’ to hurt to lose her,” he said.
MacVeigh leaned across the table and spoke earnestly.
“Yes, I know what it means, Pelly,” he replied. “I know what it means to love some one— and lose. I know. Listen.”
Quickly he told Pelliter the story of the Barren, of the coming of Isobel, the mother, of the kiss she had given him, and of the flight, the pursuit, the recapture, and of that final moment when he had taken the steel cuffs from Deane’s wrists. Once he had begun the story he left nothing untold, even to the division of the blue-flower petals and the tress of Isobel’s hair. He drew both from his pocket and showed them to Pelliter, and at the tremble in his voice there came a mistiness in his comrade’s eyes. When he had finished Pelliter reached across with his one good arm and gripped the other’s hand.
“An’ what she said about the blue flower is comin’ true, Billy,” he whispered. “It’s bringing happiness to you, just as she said, for you’re going down to her—”