The two men faced each other; the girl watched with stoic eyes, and the children slept on peacefully.
“Bon!” Cuchoise said at last. “Verbaux, you confie en moi, Jean Cuchoise, Ah no tell heet to le facteur.”
When he had finished, the voyageur stretched himself on a bed of skins. “Bon soi’, Verbaux,” he said, and was soon asleep.
Jules unfolded his blanket, spread it across some boughs, and in a few minutes he too slept. The girl arranged her bed beside the little ones, blew out the candles, and silence came on everything.
XIII
SOLITUDE
The dogs about the post yelped and quarreled throughout the night; and the nearly full moon fell slowly through the northern heavens, showing gray-white and metallic on everything. The north star was vividly bright and twinkled ceaselessly. All was still about the post so far as human beings were concerned. Oft in the steel-blue distances wolves howled, and the sounds of their voices came softly across the intervening cold wastes; the dogs stopped and listened, then broke forth in louder clamourings.
The night passed, and then a growing light brightened the eastern skies; little by little they turned from deep blue-black to light green, then a faint rose-colour appeared and broadened; it changed into darting beams of golden light that spread over the heavens, fading to pale yellow in the west. A few clouds drifted slowly across the path of the rising sun and were bathed in its warm glow. One by one figures came from the tepees and buildings in the post; the smoke from many fires curled upward slowly in the still, crisp air.
Jules and Cuchoise came out into the yard together. “Ah mus’ get hax,” said Jules.
“M-m,” the other answered, went back to the tepee, and brought Verbaux a bright new axe. “Voilà!” he said as he gave it to him.