"They're all down there, Marcel dear. They're down there on the river," she said, as she came to his side and her two hands clasped themselves about his swinging arm. "There's Little One Man, Snake Foot, and Med'cine Charlie. They're good boys, and the dogs are fresh, and ready. I saw to that. We can start right away, and I guess you can't just set the gait too hot."
CHAPTER XIX
THE STORE-HOUSE
Steve pushed back from the table in An-ina's kitchen. The woman was standing ready to minister to his lightest demands. She had waited on him throughout the meal, and remained standing the whole time. It was a habit, which, throughout their years of life together, Steve had been powerless to break her of. It was her pride thus to wait upon him.
Her soft, watchful eyes were observing him closely as he filled and lit his pipe. There was something approaching anxiety in their depths. It may have been the dull yellow lamplight that robbed the man's face of its usual look of robust health. But if the shadows wrought upon it and the curious pasty yellow tint of the skin were due to the lamplight, certainly the hollows about the eyes, the cheeks, which had become almost alarmingly drawn, and the sunken lines about the firm mouth could not have been attributed to a similar cause.
An-ina understood this. She understood more. She had realized, during the weeks that had elapsed since Steve's return from the heart of Unaga, a curious growing bodily lassitude in the man. It was something approaching inertia, and she knew its cause. Fear had grown up in her simple Indian mind and heart. She wanted to speak. She wanted to offer her warning. But somehow Steve's will was her law, and she knew that will was driving him now in a fashion that would only leave her words wasted. So, while her lips remained silent, her feelings were clearly enough expressed in her eyes.
"Just a draw or two at the old pipe, An-ina," Steve said, with his flicker of a smile that was full of gentleness. "Guess you can't know the relief of being rid of the mask for awhile. The taste of every breath I draw through it makes me well-nigh sick. Still, it's got to be. It's that or quick death. And I'm not yearning to 'cash in' yet. There's more than two weeks of it still. We brought a hell of a cargo of the stuff. More than I guessed. I'd like to get through with it before Marcel gets back with—this Keeko."
An-ina nodded. Something of her anxiety became absorbed by her tender smile at the reference to Marcel and Keeko.
"The thaw him no come," she said. "Maybe him not find Keeko. Maybe it long—heap long time. Oh, yes?"