"You think that?" she cried. Then with a nod: "I'm kind of glad. But you don't know Little One Man—yet. And Snake Foot. And Med'cine Charlie. It isn't me. I've maybe the will. But—I haven't the skill, or the grit. No. My boys were raised on the rapids of the Dubawnt River. If you heard Little One Man I guess you'd know just what that means. As for me, I've learned things from necessity. I had to learn, same as I've to collect those furs Lorson Harris is going to pay for. Oh, I'm not full of a courage like you think. It's will. Will bred of necessity. It's the sort of will that can't reckon the balance of chances. Chances just don't exist. That's all. It's as you say. That ghost of a hill yonder would have to hand me what I need if I couldn't get it nearer home. But I'd be scared—sure. Badly scared, same as I felt watching you waiting on that moose."
Marcel withdrew his gaze from the tremendous view beyond the river. He turned to the scene of the little encampment so far down below. He saw a moving figure by the canoes, beached on the barren foreshore. He beheld the curl of smoke rising from a camp-fire. He knew that a meal was in preparation. It was all as he understood such things, and its interest for him was that it was the home of the girl who had so suddenly taken possession of his life.
"Necessity," he said reflectively. "Guess I'm not just wise to things like older folk. But it seems to me 'necessity' is the thing of all things in life. It sort of seems the key that unlocks the meaning of everything. It sets you chasing pelts to sell for dollars, and it leaves their finding just the one thing worth while. If you got plenty food you don't care two cents if you eat it or not. If you haven't, why the thought of food sets you dreaming beautiful dreams of things you never tasted, and maybe you'd hate anyway if folks handed them to you. If you got a swell bed that's all set ready for you, maybe your fancy sets you sleeping on the hard ground with just a blanket to cover you. If you hadn't, then the thought of that darn blanket would likely set you crazy to grab the other feller's. I come along out every season chasing pelts. Seeing I don't need 'em it leaves me trailing a bull moose that hands me a chance of getting to grips with the business of life an' death. Say, give me 'necessity' all the time. It's the thing that makes men of the folks you can make anything of at all, and, anyway, makes life a thing to grab right up into your arms and hug so as if you never meant to let go. Necessity for you—a girl—is just the thing that beats me. Why, the men folk around you must be all sorts of everyday folk that wouldn't matter a circumstance if the whole darn lot got lost in the fog of their own notions, and were left to hand in their checks hollering for the help they never fancied handing you."
There was hot indignation in the final denunciation. Keeko revelled in his sympathy. She pondered a moment. Then a fresh impulse urged her.
"I was just wondering," she said, her gaze avoiding the figure standing so heedlessly at the brink of the canyon, "I kind of feel I ought to tell you of that necessity. Yet it's hard. As I said, there's secrets, and if you start in to talk free north of 60° you're liable to hand over those secrets that belong to the folk who reckon they've the right to impose them on all those belonging to them. I've no sort of secret of my own. None at all. But I guess my step-father has. And that secret is the reason that's brought him to face the storms and evil spirits of Unaga." She laughed without any lightness. "Will you be content to hear the things I may tell you—without asking me to show you how it is these things are so?" she demanded.
"I don't ask a thing," the man replied promptly. "I don't need to know a thing. You don't get the way I feel. You're a girl. You need furs for trade. Guess that trade means the whole of everything to you, and is liable to make you plenty happy. Well—why, it pleases me to death to help you. That's all."
For a moment Keeko let her wide blue eyes dwell on the man's youthful face.
"That only makes me want to say things more," she retorted, with a slight flush dyeing her soft cheeks. "So I'm just going to say those things right away, and I don't care what secret I hand out doing it. When a man's generosity gets busy it's to limits mostly a long way ahead. Well, when it's that way I don't reckon a woman feels like slamming the door in his face. I've a step-father and a mother. My mother's sick—sick to death. She's all I've got, and all I care for. She's kind of a weak woman who's been up against most of the worry and kicks a world can hand her. And now she's sick to death, and looks like getting that peace that life never seemed to be able to hand her. My step-father's a tough man, and I hate him. Say, you guess that my scare isn't worth two cents. I'm scared of my step-father like nothing else in the world. Oh, I'm not scared that he might raise a club at me. That wouldn't worry me a thing. Guess I could deal with that—right. No. I'm not scared that way. It's something different, and it's come through nothing he's ever done or threatened against—me. No, it's my poor mother. I tell you he's letting her die. He's been letting her die all these years when I wasn't old enough to understand. He wants to be rid of her. He's just a murderer at heart, because he's letting her die through neglect he's figgered out. And my mother isn't only a sick woman dying of the consumption the life he's exposed her to has brought on. She's got a broken heart that he's handed her. But sick as she is, she's wise, and she lies abed thinking not for herself but for me—all the time. And lying there she's worked out a way so I'll be able to get free of my step-father, and play a hand in life on my own when she's gone. It was she taught me to handle a rifle when I'd got hands strong enough to hold it. It was she who set me in the charge of Little One Man years ago, and with Snake Foot and Charlie, to learn the business of pelt hunting. Then when I'd learned all she reckoned I need she lay around and figgered things out further. It was all done without fuss, it was all done in a small way so my step-father shouldn't guess the meaning. She just grew me into a pelt hunter who he thought some day would be useful hunting for him, and he was kind of pleased. Oh, yes, I hunt for him, but for every dollar I make for him there's five for myself. And those five are hidden deep so he'll never find them. I've done this five seasons, and my sick mother reckons this is to be my last. She guesses she'll never see another spring, and she wants to see me with five thousand dollars clear when I get back to home. Then, when she's gone, she wants me to hit the trail quick. She wants me to take Little One Man and Snake Foot and Charlie with me, and, with my five thousand dollars, she wants me to look around beyond my step-father's reach, and make good in the craft I've learned. With that thought in her mind she guesses to lie easy in the grave she reckons I'll see is made right for her. That's my 'necessity' and it's big—if you could only see into the notions of two women."
Marcel listened without a word of comment. And as he listened his eyes hardened, and the youthful curves about his lips drew tight into fine lines. For all his inexperience of the lives of others the story set a fierce anger raging in his hot, impulsive heart. The unthinkable to him was a man who could so beset a woman.
He nodded.