“You prefer it that way,” he said quietly. “That’s all right. Keep right on my tail,” he went on, reaching up and casting his mooring adrift. “It’s mighty dark along the river, an’ maybe we’ll be thankful it is that way. If it beats you you can make fast to me. If you’ve sense you’ll act that way. I got two eyes an’ I know all ther’ is to this darn trail.”
He thrust out into the stream, and the second vessel followed him like a ghostly shadow in the twilight.
A man sat gazing out from his rocky shelter. His dark eyes were brooding as he contemplated the falling snow. Below him, rendered invisible by the storm, lay the still bosom of the mountain lake with shore ice supporting its white burden. The bulk of the water still resisted the grip of winter, but with every passing day, every hour, the spread of shore ice was encroaching.
The grey curtain of falling snow was impenetrable even to the accustomed eyes of Usak. The world about him was silent, and windless, and alive with that desolate threat which drives man to despair. He had reached the mouth of the Valley of the Fire Hills, and, blinded by the sudden snow-storm, had sought what shelter he could find.
His shelter was half cavern and half overhung in the towering headland at the mouth of the valley. Yet it served. His kyak was hauled from the icy water and lay on the foreshore. And the man sat over a smoulder of fire made of the driftwood he had collected on his way, and the profusion of lichen he had gathered from the snow-free shelter in which he sat.
Usak crouched huddled and smoking, over the inadequate fire. Its warmth was negligible, but it afforded that without which no human being in such desolation could endure, a mental comfort and companionship. He was content to wait. For all the winter was advancing apace, for all he knew that soon, desperately soon, the great lake, out upon which he was gazing, would be one broad sheet of ice many feet in thickness, and impossible for the light craft which was his vehicle, he was content enough. The Valley of the Fire Hills would remain unfrozen, and the great river below him would remain open long enough for his navigation. For the rest there was always portage. Oh, yes. Time was with him. The real freeze-up was not yet. The snow would cease later, and meanwhile he could contemplate the thing he had looked forward to for so many years.
So there was no impatience that the world was blinded by snowflakes half the size of his brown palm. With the passing of the silent storm, so still, so windless, doubtless the cold would increase, but also, doubtless, the sky could clear, and the Arctic twilight would again light the world with its ghostly rays.
He thrust out a moccasined foot and kicked the embers of his fire together. He removed the pipe from his strong jaws, and held its stem to the warmth. The saliva in it had frozen, and it had gone out.
Presently he reached down and picked up a live coal. He tossed it into the pipe bowl and sucked heavily at the stem, belching clouds of reeking smoke. His enjoyment was profound.