“He worries me some,” he admitted at last. “Ther’s things mighty good in him, I guess. Ther’ must be. He raised the Kid. But ther’s things mighty bad I haven’t told you about.” Then he shrugged. “It don’t matter anyway. No, he don’t stand in. Maybe things’ll happen. We’ll just have to wait. You never can tell with a darn neche.”
A vision of the terrified Japanese woman had risen up before his mind’s eye. He remembered the nightmare she was enduring at the thought of Usak’s promised return. Suddenly he flung out his hands dismissing the vision.
“It’s all queer, Chilcoot,” he cried. “But we must see it through. It’s strange. To think I’ve had to beat about this darn old North to find the thing—the only thing to make life worth while. I could laff, only I don’t feel like laffing. Say, boy, you just don’t know how I want that—that Kid.”
CHAPTER XI
CHILDREN OF THE NORTH
Each day the sun’s brief reign was growing less. There was perhaps six hours of daylight, fiercely bright when the snow clouds permitted, but otherwise grey and cold, and without beneficence. To the human mind day was no longer a thing of joy, but only a respite in which to complete those labours essential to existence in the northern wilderness before the long twilight of night finally closed down upon the world.
At the farm on the Caribou preparations for the winter were already in full swing. Already the reindeer herd had been passed up to the shelter of the hills to roam well-nigh free through the dark aisles of the woodland bluffs which lined the deeper valleys of the great divide, out of the heart of which the waters of the Caribou sprang. The labour of banking the outer walls of the homestead with soil for greater security against the cold had been completed. For the ground was already hardening under the sharp night frosts, and almost any day now might see the first flurry of snow. Daily the hauling of fuel went on from the distant forest bluff which sheltered the ruins of the missionary’s home where the Kid had first seen the light of the northern day. And this work was undertaken by the boys, and the half-breed Eskimos, whose work amongst the deer herd had ceased with its departure to the hills in search of winter keep.
Life just now was a sheer routine. A routine which demanded faithful observance. The least neglect might well spell disaster for those who knew the narrowness of the margin in human victory over the merciless winter season. But these northern people knew the routine of it by heart, and nothing would be neglected, nothing forgotten. The haulage of fuel would go on far into the winter, and when the world froze up and the white pall was spread over its dead body only the method of its transport would be changed.
But for all the drear of outlook in the coming season life was apparently no less the care-free thing which the youth of the farm so surely made it appear. Childish laughter was proof against a falling sun. It was proof against the anxious labour of it all, just as it was proof against the contemplation of unending darkness. It was almost as though the change had its appeal. Was not the twilight of winter something to inspire imagination? Was not the fierce blizzard, when the world was completely blinded for days on end, something to confront and defy with all the hardy spirit of youth? Was not the brilliant aurora something about which to weave romantic dreams as fantastic as was the great crescent of dancing light itself? And the ghostly northern lights, and the brilliant night-lit heavens, with their moon, and reflected moons, were not these matters in which the budding human mind could find a wealth of inspiration for the riot of imagination?
Yes, the long night of winter was not without its appeal to the young life on the Caribou River. Only was it for those elders, who knew its desperateness, who had long since learned the littleness of human life in the monstrous battle of the elements, a season of grave anxiety that left them indifferent to the irresponsible imaginings and dreamings of those at the threshold of life.