He contemplated with joy the labours ahead. The return to Oolak and Julyman. The work of the harvest. The portaging of it. The packing of the sleds. Then the long, last homeward trail with a success achieved beyond his dreams. It was something indeed to have lived for and laboured for. Marcel!
CHAPTER XVI
KEEKO AND NICOL
It was all so drab, so cheerless. Outside the snow was still piled to the depth of many feet, the ice still held the river in its chill embrace. But the temperature was rising. The open season was advancing.
Keeko was aware of it. There were weeks of melting to pass yet. But soon——
Inside, the vault-like store was warm enough. But it was dark, and squalid, and it reeked with the taint which only the centuries can impart. These things impressed themselves never so much upon Keeko as now, while she sat over the warming stove.
She had just returned from Seal Bay. She had passed most of the winter on the trail with her Indians. She preferred their company in desperate circumstances to the associations of Fort Duggan. During those long months she had planned the future for herself, a future which had nothing to do with Nicol, but which took him into her calculations. She possessed a wonderful faculty for clear thinking. And her decision had been irrevocably taken.
Nicol was leaning on the heavy oaken bench that served him for a counter, and about him, and behind him, were the piled stocks of his trade. He was preoccupied. Keeko was glad enough. She had returned only in the execution of her plans, and to prepare for the moment when she intended to steal her freedom, and shut this man's companionship for ever out of her life.
Just now her thoughts were far away as she basked in the warmth of the stove. They were upon the coming spring, the opening river, upon the old moose head set up to watch for her coming, and—upon Marcel.