“She’d take most boys o’ your years—thinkin’!”
“Ye—es.”
Bill had turned, and was gazing up into the other’s smiling face. But there was no invitation to continue the talk in his regard. On the contrary. And Chilcoot’s smile passed abruptly.
“Guess I’ll beat it,” he said a little hurriedly. And the sitting man made no attempt to detain him.
The man at the fire was no longer gazing into it. He was peering out into the dark of the night. Furthermore he was no longer squatting on his haunches. He had shifted his position, lying on his side so that his range of vision avoided the fire-light as he searched in the direction of the water’s edge below him. His heavy pea-jacket had been unfastened, and his right hand was thrust deep in its pocket.
The fire had been replenished and raked together. It was burning merrily, as though the man before it contemplated a prolonged vigil. The night sounds were few enough just now in the northern wilderness. The flies and mosquitoes were no longer the burden they were in summer. The frigid night seemed to have silenced their hum, as it had silenced most other sounds. The voice of the sluggish river alone went on with that soothing monotony which would continue until the final freeze-up.
But Wilder was alert in every fibre. He had reason to be. For all the silence he knew there was movement going on. Secret movement which would have to be dealt with before the night was out. His ears had long since detected it. They had detected it on the river, both going down and returning. And imagination had supplied interpretation. Now he was awaiting that development he felt would surely come.
He had not long to wait. A sound of moccasined feet padding over the loose gravel of the river bed suddenly developed. It was approaching him. And he strained in the darkness for a vision of his visitor. After awhile a shadowy outline took definite shape. It was of the tall, burly figure of a man coming up from the water’s edge.
He came rapidly, and without a word he took his place at the opposite side of the fire.