The stillness of the world was awesome. The hum of insect life accentuated it, and so, too, with the murmur of summer waters, which is the real music of the silent places. The breathlessness of it all suggested suspense, threat. So it is always in the great hill countries. The sense of threat is ever present to the human mind, driving men to seek companionship, even if it be only association with the creatures who are there to bear his burdens.
Threat was stirring acutely now. It was in the profound quiet, in the saturating heat; it was in the portentous silence wrapt about the hidden habitation which the man at the water’s edge had just left behind him.
Leaning on his old-fashioned rifle the Indian, Usak, was gazing out northwards over the winding course of the river. His dark eyes were alert, fiercely alert. No detail of the scene escaped his searching gaze as he followed the little water-course on its way to the mountain lake beyond. He searched it closely right up to the great bend where stood the three isolated fire hills. His Indian mind was calculating; it was seeking answers to doubts and questions besetting him. For he knew that on the result of his right thinking now depended the achievement he had marked out for himself.
Quite motionless he stood for many minutes. Yet for all his great height and the physical strength of his muscular body his presence was without effect upon the immense solitude of the world about him. It had no more impression than had one single creature amongst the myriads of flies and mosquitoes swarming hungrily about his dark head.
The house in the woods behind him was no longer of any concern. There, as he had set out to do, he had already worked his fierce will. It was sufficient. That which was yet to be accomplished he knew to lie on the waterway approach, and his mind was focussed upon the three black, smoking hills which he had passed on his way from the distant lake.
He stirred out of his deep contemplation. He raised his rifle and slung it upon his buckskin-clad shoulder. Then he turned about, and raised one lean, brown hand. It was an expressive gesture. There was something in it similar to the shoulder-shrug of callous indifference. He passed on down the river.
The canoe was making its leisurely way up the river. The dip of the paddles was easy; it was rhythmic and full of the music so perfectly in tune with Nature in her gentler mood. The vessel was long and low, and built for rapid, heavy transport where the waters were not always at rest, and the battle with the elements was fierce and unrelenting. It was the hide-built craft native to the Eskimo, whose life is spent in the Polar hunt.
The vessel was served by eight paddles. But there were two other occupants lounging amidships against the rolls of blankets and furs which were part of their camp outfit. These two were talking in low voices while the men at the paddles, stripped to the waist, squat, powerful, yellow-skinned creatures whose muscles rippled in response to their efforts under a skin that shone like satin, remained concerned only for their labours.
“There will be a big noise—later.”