For some moments they sat in silence before the might and mystery of that untrodden world. Awe lurked in the eyes of both. It was that awe of the Northland which breeds terror in the weak, and only the strong may survive.
Marcel broke the spell of it. He laughed with a quiet confidence that found no echo in the girl's heart.
"It's pretty darn big," he said, with something almost like contempt in his tone. "But it pays us—toll. I—a man. And you—why, you just a—girl."
It was the pride of youth and strength that spoke. Uncle Steve would not have talked that way—now. Years ago—perhaps. Years ago before his terrible journey across Unaga, when he, too, had defied the very things Marcel now spurned.
But the awe in Keeko's eyes only deepened.
"Maybe you're right," she said doubtfully. "But sometimes it scares me. Scares me to death."
She drew a long breath as she made the admission.
Marcel's quick answer came with a laugh of amusement.
"Yet you come up this river with just three neches," he cried. "You make rapids that would hold me guessing, for all the outfit of Eskimo I carry. You'll beat it back south to your home against a two mile stream with a deadly winter hard on your moccasined heels. I just want to laff. You're scared! Why, get a look right out there, just as far as you can see. I mean where the haze shuts down like a curtain on a forbidden world. There, where there's the dim outline of one big hill propping up the roof of things, standing above all the others. If you took the notion there were pelts there that would worry Lorson Harris to pay for, you'd think no more of making those hills than you worry with the trail over this darn river. That scare notion isn't worth two cents."
The admiration, the obvious delight of Marcel as he derided the girl's plea left a great warmth of pleasure flooding Keeko's eyes.