He paused and rubbed his hands thoughtfully while the eyeless man gazed unerringly up into his face, and the woman beside him waited a prey to apprehension.
“You best beat it back into these woods,” he went on quickly. “Leave that fire—burning. Leave it so it looks like dying out. As if we were all out on portage. See? And you two make the woods, dodging the snow patches, an’ walking on the bare ground. Take your sleeping kit, and get what sleep you can—without a fire. That’s all. I’ll get right back just as quick as I know. Once we’re on the river below these Falls, why I guess Usak hasn’t a chance. But I got to leave you one end or the other while I make this first portage, an’ it seems horse sense leaving you above the Falls. We haven’t seen a sign of that murdering Indian above here the whole way.”
The blindman nodded.
“That’s sense,” he said in his harsh way.
The woman silently acquiesced. It was sufficient that the man had agreed. But her troubled eyes told of the haunting dread that obsessed her.
Wilder turned away and moved over to his canoe lying ready. He stooped down, and when he stood up again the little vessel was exactly poised upon his broad back.
The hush of the woods was profound. The dark aisles of the trees were visible in the moonlight, for the foliage above was thin, and meagre, and tattered under the fierce storms which roared down out of the heart of the hills. The promise of sun-down had been fulfilled. A full moon shone down upon a chill, silvery world, and the starlight was of that amazing brilliance which is the great redeeming of the Arctic night. There was no wind, not a breath. It was cold, intensely cold, and the northern heavens were lit by an amazing wealth of vivid, moving lights.
The blindman and his woman made no pretence of the sleep that Wilder had suggested. Sleep was impossible to them. They crouched together in their sleeping furs, striving for any measure of warmth for their chilled bodies. But they had otherwise obeyed. For the thing suggested had appealed. They were deep hidden amidst the tree trunks, waiting, waiting for that return which alone could yield them any sense of security.
They talked together spasmodically, and in low, hushed tones.