It, was as well. The rush was considerable as the Sleepers roused from their hibernation. An-ina, Julyman, Oolak, were all his able lieutenants, but Steve's was the guiding mind and hand. The others were people of the same colour as these half Eskimos.
The hubbub and chaffer of it all went on the day long. The store was alive with the squat, black-eyed, dusky creatures, swathed in their Arctic furs. They brought all their trade, surplus stocks of the dried Adresol weed, pelts, beaver and grey fox, wolf and seal. And for these they demanded equipment and supplies for the open season's hunt. They were mainly a good-natured and unsuspicious crowd whose guttural tongue was harsh and very voluble. They needed handling. Essentially they needed handling by the white man.
Steve had been relieved for his midday meal. He was relieved by An-ina, assisted by Julyman. Oolak stood by with his club, ready for any display of the predatory instincts that yielded to temptation.
Steve had not yet returned from the kitchen. He had finished his hearty meal and lit his pipe. He was standing before the window, from which all covering had been removed at the advance of the open season.
The air was chill. For the moment he was staring out reflectively at the clear, bright sunlight, while the buzz of voices in the store hummed upon his ears. It was well-nigh a perfect Northern spring day. The sky was a-froth with white, sunlit clouds. But the sunlight had little relation to the sunlight of more temperate climates at such a season. It was fiercely bright against the melting snows, with a steely chill that entirely lacked the gracious promise of budding trees and tender shooting grass. At best it spoke of the final passing of the wastes of snow and ice.
These things, however, were not concerning Steve. It was one of those moments of solitude in which he could give run to the thoughts that most nearly concerned him. His eyes had parted from the shadowy smile which they usually wore before the eyes of others. Just now they were scarcely happy, and the drawn brows suggested a lurking trouble that disturbed him. He was thinking of Marcel. Ever since the visitation of Hervey Garstaing, Marcel had rarely been out of his thoughts.
He removed his pipe and passed a hand across his broad brow. It was a gesture of weariness. There were no eyes to witness the action, so he attempted no disguise. It mattered little enough to him that the whole world about him was awakening. It mattered nothing to him that the white world was passing, and the rivers were starting to flood. The feathered world might wing to greet the new-born season. It might darken the sky with its legions. Such things had no power to stir his pulses, any more than had the thought of the great triumph he had achieved over the desperate Arctic elements, if all was not well with—Marcel.
This was his haunting fear. He was thinking of Marcel—and this white girl, Keeko. Even when he had listened to the delighted tones of An-ina, as she told him the story which she had obtained from the boy's own lips, his fears had been stirred. The woman's delight had been the simple delight of a woman in such romance. That side of it had left him cold. He knew the Northern world, his world, too well. He knew the type of woman that haunted the habitations of man in such regions as Unaga. And so he had feared for Marcel.
Since that time had happened those things which warned him of a wide-flung conspiracy of which his secret trade in Adresol was the centre. Oh, yes, it had needed but one flash of inspiration to warn him of this thing, and his concern was that this beautiful white woman, Keeko, was a link in the chain of the conspiracy with which he was surrounded.
He saw the hand of Lorson Harris in it, guiding, prompting, from that office he knew so well in Seal Bay.