“Couldn’t he go off somewhere else and marry her and start again? Honest, I think if Hugh had some one who thought he was a god, he’d likely enough be one. He—he lives by—illusion—isn’t that the word? It’s kind of easy to be noble when some one you love believes you to be, isn’t it? That’s Hugh; he—”
Bella threw down her rag, turned fiercely upon him and gripped his shoulders.
“Are you a man or a child?” she said. “You love this girl yourself!”
“No!” he cried and broke from her and went limping out into the frosty night with its comfortless glitter of stars.
As soon as his ankle was stronger, Pete spent all day and most of the night on his skis, trying to outrun the growing shadow of his misery. Hugh’s work fell on his shoulders. He had not only his accustomed chores, the Caliban duties of woodchopping and water-carrying, the dressing of wild meat, the dish-drying and heavier housework, the repairs about the cabin—but he had the trapping. In Hugh’s profound new absorption he seemed to have forgotten the necessity for making a livelihood. During the first years of their exile they had lived on his savings, ordering their supplies by the mail, which left them at the foot of that distant trail leading into the forest. Thence Hugh, under shelter of night, would carry them—lonely, terrible journeys that taxed even his strength. When Pete grew big enough to load, he was sent to the trading-station, and Hugh became an expert trapper. The savings were not entirely spent, but they were no longer touched; the pelts brought a livelihood.
Pete had had his instructions concerning his behavior at the trading-station; many years before, he had stammered a legend of a sickly father who had died, who was buried back there by the lonely cabin where he and his “mother” chose to live. Bella and Hugh had even dug up a mound for which they had fashioned a rude cross. It could be seen, in summer, from the living-room window—that mock grave more terrible in its suggestions than a real grave ever could have been. There was also a hiding-place under the boards of the floor. No one had ever seen the grave or driven Hugh into hiding. It was not an inquisitive country, and its desolation was forbidding. Pete had learned to discourage the rare sociability of the other traders.
Now, however, the young man had not only to trade his pelts but to trap them, and for this business of trapping which was distasteful to him, he had not a tithe of Hugh’s skill. His bundle of pelts brought him a sorry supply of necessities. He was ashamed, himself, and having dumped the burden from his shoulders to the kitchen floor would hurry into the other room, not to see Bella’s expression when she opened her bundles.
To-night Pete was tired; the load had not been heavy, but the snow was beginning to soften under the mild glowing of an April sun, and his skis had tugged at his feet and gathered a clogging mass. His body ached, and there was a sullen and despairing weight upon his spirit. A mob of rebels danced in his heart. He watched Hugh’s face, saw the flaring adoration of his eyes, thought that Sylvie must feel the scorch of them on her cheek, so close. In his own eyes there showed a brooding fire.
Bella broke into the room.
“Look here,” she said, “you’d better get to trapping again, Hugh Garth. Pete’s pelts don’t bring a quarter of what we need—especially these days.”