"Don't worry with that. I'll come along for the skull and the horns when the wolves have done with it. I've quit big game. I'm out for fox, silver and black. I'm out to break Lorson Harris's bank roll—for you. Come on!"
CHAPTER VII
SUMMER DAYS
The youth in Marcel was abundant, it was even headlong. But even so, there was a strong steadying strain of wisdom in him, the wisdom of the Northland, bought at a price that few can afford to pay. It served to hold the balance under the influence of this new adventure.
It was something more than adventure. There was a significance in the extraordinary encounter with Keeko that dimmed to the commonplace every thrill he had ever experienced in the past. It had lifted him at a bound to that pinnacle of manhood, which until the moment when woman presents herself upon youth's stage of life can never be reached.
Every pre-conceived object in life had suddenly been brushed aside by the exhilaration of the moment. The subdued colours of his horizon had been completely overwhelmed by the new radiance. Even Uncle Steve, that precious guide and friend, who had always occupied the central place in his focus, had almost been forgotten.
For Keeko, too, whose youth had been shadowed from the moment understanding had broken through the golden mists of childhood's dream-world, a new meaning to life had been born. She made no attempt to look ahead, and the shadows of the past had no power whatever to rob her of one moment of chaste delight. All she knew, or cared, was that, almost on the instant, the personality of something over six feet of manhood had taken possession of her will. And, with that splendid abandon which generous nature mercifully ordains for youth, she yielded herself to the ecstasy of it.
Keeko was resting upon a fallen tree-trunk. It had been torn up by the roots and flung headlong by the merciless fury of a winter storm. Marcel was standing beside her. The way had been long, but there was no real weariness in either. They had simply paused at their journey's end to survey the great gorge lying at their feet. In the heart of it lay the highway that came up out of the south.
It was a scene of crude immensity which left all life infinitesimal. The barren of it suggested the body of Nature gnawed to the bone, picked clean of the fair flesh with which it is her wont to distract the eyes and senses of man. There lay a frowning, rock-bound chasm at their feet, and deep down in the heart of it a broad, sluggish stream. The two youthful figures were gazing out across the gaping lips at the far-off, distant hills rising up in defence of the secrets of the Northern seas of snow and ice.