"That's how I feel about it," he said. "It seems to me we haven't any sort of right to set up the things that 'ud please us against the happiness of those who've been good to us. I'd thought of beating down this river with you, to see things through for you. Then I remembered a sort of mother woman who looks to me for the help of a son. Then I thought of asking you to cut the home with a step-father, who's a murderer at heart, and come along where you'd find only love and friendship. Then I remembered your sick mother. I'm guessing the self of things is mighty big, but there's something bigger. Still—Say, come and sit right here!"
He was smiling. But his eyes were full of a deep tenderness.
Keeko obeyed. She had no desire to deny him. He seemed to have robbed her of all will of her own. His will had become wholly her desire. She took her seat on the tree-trunk, just removed from his side by a rift in the great log which was hidden under a growth of lichen.
Marcel's eyes sought hers. But she had turned from him. She was gazing out at the moose head set up over the gorge.
"How am I to hear if you're needing my help?" he demanded. "I can't make here till the first break of spring. There's just one hell of a long winter before that."
Marcel was endeavouring to smother his feeling. Keeko shook her head. Had she not thought and thought over this very thing?
"I won't need help," she said. "Not now. You've helped me through my only worry. If mother lives, things'll just go on the same. If—she doesn't? She and I—we got it fixed. I hit right out for myself as we've planned it—that's all."
But the hot blood had mounted to Marcel's head. "It's not!" he cried with startling force. "D'you think you're going out of my life that way? You?" Suddenly he broke into a laugh that echoed down the gorge. He pointed out at the moose head. "Look at the old feller," he cried. "He's winking his old eyes and flapping the comic ears he hasn't got. I swear if you could only hear it he's busting his sides laffing at the joke of you reckoning to cut yourself out of my life that way. No, sir! I'm coming right along here at the first break of spring, and if I don't find you around, or a sign from you, I'm beating up this river to look for you, if I have to chase it sheer up to its source. Say, you can't hide yourself in a corner of this darnation territory I won't find you in. And I guess I'm just as obstinate as a she-wolf chasing a feed of human meat. It can't be done, Keeko. Not now. I tell you it can't be done."
The man's force was no less for all his smiling eyes. And Keeko made no pretence.
"But why?" she cried, with a gesture of her hands that made him desire to imprison them. "Why should you worry? You've helped me to the things that'll leave me free of—everything. I haven't a right. I haven't any sort of right to take you from your folks, and from those things it's your work to do for them. Besides, who said I figgered to cut myself out of your life?" She smiled up into his eyes with an almost child-like confidence. "I don't want to. I—I hadn't a thought that way. Say, if I thought I'd never see you again I'd feel like nothing in the world ever could matter. The thing I'm guessing to make plain is when we quit here you don't need to worry a thing. I'll get through, and next spring I'll come right along up and tell you how I'm fixed."