The chorus was still raging as she flung open the door of the store, and stood peering out into the brilliant night. Steve's repeating rifle was ready in her hand. She had lit the lamp before she removed the bars of the door, and stood silhouetted against its yellow light. Only a woman or the utterly reckless could have committed such a folly.
With every sense alert, those senses that were so keenly instinct with the perception of the animal world, she searched the shadows within the stockade, and the distance beyond its open gateway. There was no sign of the marauder she looked for. But nevertheless the chorus of the canine displeasure and protest went on. At last she pulled the door to behind her and passed out into the night.
Once in the open her search was swift and keen. The great enclosure yielded nothing to disturb, so she passed on to the gateway, where the barking of the aged dogs had no power to confuse her observation.
The coldly gleaming sky shone radiantly upon the white-clad earth. The calm of the world was unbroken. Even the wind was dead flat, and not a sigh came from the woods which hid up the dreaming Sleepers. There was nothing. Nothing at all. And she determined to return and to silence the foolish old trail dogs with the weight of a rawhide. Just a few moments longer she waited searching with eyes and ears, then she turned back.
But her purpose remained unfulfilled. She stood seemingly rooted to the spot while her ears listened to the faint distant shout of a human voice. It was prolonged. It had nothing in it of a cry of distress. It was the call of a voice suggesting a simple signal of approach.
For an instant her heart seemed to leap into her throat. Then, in a wild surge, it started to hammer as though seeking to free itself from the bonds that held it. That call. She knew it. There could be no mistake. Nor could she mistake the voice that uttered it. It was the voice of Steve. It was the great return of which her faith had assured her. And high and shrill she flung back her answer, with all the power of her lungs and a grateful heart.
The greeting had been all An-ina had ever dreamed it. It had been even more, for she had gazed into steady grey eyes shining with the light of triumph.
They were standing in the store where the stove, banked for the long, cold night, was radiating its comforting warmth. Steve, sturdy, unemotional, was replying to the question which had come with the passing of the woman's greeting.
"We're loaded right down, and the dogs are well-nigh beat," he said, in his quiet way. "Guess that's not the reason they're way back camped while I got on to home though. It's the green weed in full bloom, and we daren't open the bales with folks around without masks. We daren't risk a thing that way. I kind of guessed I'd best get on and warn you and Marcel, and make ready to pass it right into the store-house quick." He thrust up a hand and pushed his fur cap back from his brow. And, for a brief moment, he permitted play to his feelings. "Say, it's great, An-ina! And—and I'm just glad. I guess we've been as near hell as this land can show us, but we've made good. The boys are with me back there. They're feeling good and fit, and we've—Where's Marcel?"