As he sat by the fire, now watching its leaping flames and now staring into the mystery haunted darkness that lay all about him, he wondered anew, but most of all he listened, waiting for a word that would bid him join them here in the heart of the wilderness.
He realized as never before how lonely life in the Arctic could become, how uncertain life’s span. He had been on the verge of starvation. Now he was fed. His arrow, shot into the heart of the caribou, had not been broken. He had salvaged that. It lay close beside him. Yet this was his only arrow. There had been a little thawing of snow on sunny slopes, but winter was still here. The low swish and sigh of the pines suggested a cold wind from the north with a possible blizzard. To be alone in such a storm, with but a single arrow—
As if reading the boy’s thought, the old man spoke. “We can offer you little protection and no bed, but you are welcome to a place before our fire.”
“I—I’ve got blankets.” Johnny’s tone was eager as he sprang to his feet. The smile he had seen on the girl’s face returned. He believed that she too was pleased.
“Be a great pal,” he told himself. “Strong as a man. And how she can shoot!”
To Gordon Duncan he said, “I’ll go for my blankets.”
“Are you sure you know the way?”
“It’s by a bend in the river where three great pines shade the stream.”
“I know the place,” said the girl, springing up. “I—I’ll take you as far as the river. You’ll have no trouble after that. There’s something of a trail.”
Together they left the narrow circle of golden light cast by the campfire and plunged into black shadows.