"Oh, yes? An-ina listen."
Marcel started. He stirred his great bulk, and re-lit the pipe he had failed to keep alight.
"I'd forgotten," he said, with another laugh that was not free from self-consciousness. "Say," he went on, "I've hit the greatest trail ever a feller struck in this queer darn country. Gee!" He breathed a profound sigh. "It was queer. I was trailing an old bull moose. I followed it days."
An-ina was watching him. She beheld the radiant light in his frank eyes. She noted the almost feverish manner in which he was clouding the tobacco smoke about him. She even thought she detected an unsteadiness in the hand that held his pipe. She waited.
"Oh, yes," he went on. "I was in a territory I guess I've hunted plenty. I kind of knew it all, as it's given to anyone to know this darn land. I followed the trail right up to the end, but—I didn't make a kill. No."
His tone had dropped to a soft, deep note that thrilled with some emotion An-ina had never before been aware of in him. A startled light shone in her eyes, and her work lay unheeded in her lap.
"No. I didn't make a kill, but I came right up to the end of that trail, and found——"
"A woman?"
Marcel sat up with a jolt. His wide, astonished eyes stared almost foolishly into the dark native eyes smiling back into his.
"How d'you know—that?" he demanded sharply.