“We’ll take the caribou to camp,” she said. “It’s only a half mile, all down grade. Grandfather—”
She broke off quite suddenly as one does who has found himself in danger of saying too much.
“You—you have a camp of your own—” she hesitated, “perhaps—” Again she paused.
As Johnny watched, he read in her face signs of conflicting emotions. Native hospitality, a longing for companionship, youth calling to youth, were battling with fear. This much he understood. But why the fear? She had spoken of a grandfather. Surely then there could be no objection to his joining them in a feast off the venison they had secured.
“Perhaps,” she began again. “Here,” extending her quiver filled with arrows, “take these. We have others.”
“I’ll dress the deer and we’ll divide it,” said Johnny, exasperated by what seemed to him cool effrontery. He did not so much as look at the proffered arrows.
Hanging her quiver on a spruce bough, the girl assisted him in lifting the caribou to a strong bough and stringing him up. It was then that Johnny came to know of her superb strength.
“Like a man,” he told himself.
She sat watching in silence as he performed his task. When, however, he had dressed the deer, severed its head from its body and was studying the problem of a fair division without an axe or butcher’s cleaver, she spoke again.
“Lift the fore parts to my shoulder,” she said quietly. “I think we can carry it to camp.”