For a long moment his gaze gripped and held her. Between them pa.s.sed speech without words. His eyes asked if he were outside the pale completely, if he could never wipe out the memory of that first cruel meeting. Hers answered proudly that, half-breed though she was, he was to her only a wolfer, of less interest than Black, the leader of her father's dog train.

He picked up the key and left, wild thoughts whirling through his mind. He loved her. Of what use was it trying longer to disguise it from himself. Of the inferior blood she might be, yet his whole being went out to her in deep desire. He wanted her for his mate. He craved her in every fiber of his clean, pa.s.sionate manhood, as he had never before longed for a woman in his life. And she hated him--hated him with all the blazing scorn of a young proud soul whose fine body had endured degradation on his account. He was a leper, to be cla.s.sed with Bully West.

Nor did he blame her. How could she feel otherwise and hold her self-respect. The irony of it brought a bitter smile to his lips. If she only knew it, the years would avenge her a hundredfold. For he had cut himself off from even the chance of the joy that might have been his.

In the sky an aurora flashed with scintillating splendor. The heavens were aglow with ever-changing bars and columns of colored fire.

Morse did not know it. Not till he had pa.s.sed a dozen steps beyond a man in heavy furs did his mind register recognition of him as Whaley.

He did not even wonder what business was taking the gambler toward Angus McRae's house.

Business obtruded its claims. He arranged with Blandoine to take the robes out with him and walked back to the McRae storehouse. It adjoined the large log cabin where the Scotchman and his family lived.

Blandoine and he went over the robes carefully in order that there should be no mistake as to which ones the trainmaster took. This done, Morse locked the door and handed the key to his companion.

To him there was borne the sound of voices--one low and deep, the other swift and high. He caught no words, but he became aware that a queer excitement tingled through his veins. At the roots of his hair there was an odd, p.r.i.c.kling sensation. He could give himself no reason, but some instinct of danger rang in him like a bell. The low ba.s.s and the light high treble--they reached him alternately, cutting into each other, overriding each other, clashing in agitated dissent.

Then--a shrill scream for help!

Morse could never afterward remember opening the door of the log house. It seemed to him that he burst through it like a battering-ram, took the kitchen in two strides, and hurled himself against the st.u.r.dy home-made door which led into the living-room.

This checked him, for some one had slid into its socket the bar used as a bolt. He looked around the kitchen and found in one swift glance what he wanted. It was a large back log for the fireplace.

With this held at full length under his arm he crashed forward. The wood splintered. He charged again, incited by a second call for succor. This time his attack dashed the bolt and socket from their place. Morse stumbled into the room like a drunken man.

CHAPTER XVII

A BOARD CREAKS

After Morse had closed the door, Jessie listened until the crisp crunch of his footsteps had died away. She subdued an impulse to call him back and put into words her quarrel against him.

From the table she picked up a gun-cover of moose leather she was making and moved to the fireplace. Automatically her fingers fitted into place a fringe of red cloth. (This had been cut from an old petticoat, but the source of the decoration would remain a secret, not on any account to be made known to him who was to receive the gift.) Usually her hands were busy ones, but now they fell away from the work listlessly.

The pine logs crackled, lighting one end of the room and filling the air with aromatic pungency. As she gazed into the red coals her mind was active.

She knew that her scorn of the fur-trader was a fraud. Into her hatred of him she threw an energy always primitive and sometimes savage. But he held her entire respect. It was not pleasant to admit this. Her mind clung to the shadowy excuse that he had been a wolfer, although the Indians looked on him now as a good friend and a trader who would not take advantage of them. Angus McRae himself had said there was no better citizen in the Northland.

No, she could not hold Tom Morse in contempt as she would have liked.

But she could cherish her animosity and feed it on memories that scorched her as the whiplash had her smooth and tender flesh. She would never forgive him--never. Not if he humbled himself in the dust.

Toward Angus McRae she held no grudge whatever. He had done only his duty as he saw it. The circ.u.mstances had forced his hand, for her word had pledged him to punishment. But this man who had walked into her life so roughly, mastered her by physical force, dragged her to the ignominy of the whip, and afterward had dared to do her a service--when she woke at night and thought of him she still burned with shame and anger. He had been both author and witness of her humiliation.

The girl's reverie stirred reflection of other men, for already she had suitors in plenty. Upon one of them her musing lingered. He had brought to her gifts of the friendly smile, of comradeship, of youth's debonair give-and-take. She did not try to a.n.a.lyze her feeling for Winthrop Beresford. It was enough to know that he had brought into her existence the sparkle of joy.

For life had stalked before her with an altogether too tragic mien.

In this somber land men did not laugh much. Their smiles held a background of gravity. Icy winter reigned two thirds of the year and summer was a brief hot blaze following no spring. Nature demanded of those who lived here that they struggle to find subsistence. In that conflict human beings forgot that they had been brought into the world to enjoy it with careless rapture.

Somewhere in the house a board, creaked. Jessie heard it inattentively, for in the bitter cold woodwork was always snapping and cracking.

Beresford had offered her a new philosophy of life. She did not quite accept it, yet it fascinated. He believed that the duty of happiness was laid on people as certainly as the duty of honesty. She remembered that once he had said....

There had come to her no sound, but Jessie knew that some one had opened the door and was standing on the threshold watching her. She turned her head. Her self-invited guest was Whaley.

Jessie rose. "What do you want?"

She was startled at the man's silent entry, ready to be alarmed if necessary, but not yet afraid. It was as though her thoughts waited for the cue he would presently give. Some instinct for safety made her cautious. She did not tell the free trader that her father and Fergus were from home.

He looked at her, appraisingly, from head to foot, in such a way that she felt his gaze had stripped her.

"You know what I want. You know what I'm going to get ... some day,"

he purred in his slow, feline way.

She pushed from her mind a growing apprehension.

"Father and Fergus--if you want them--"

"Have I said I wanted them?" he asked. "They're out in the woods trappin'. I'm not lookin' for them. The two of us'll be company for each other."

"Go," she said, anger flaring at his insolence. "Go. You've no business here."

"I'm not here for business, but for pleasure, my dear."

The cold, fishy eyes in his white face gloated. Suddenly she wanted to scream and pushed back the desire scornfully. If she did, n.o.body would hear her. This had to be fought out one to one.

"Why didn't you knock?" she demanded.

"We'll say I did and that you didn't hear me," he answered suavely.

"What's it matter among friends anyhow?"

"What do you want?" By sheer will power she kept her voice low.

"Your mother's over at the house. I dropped in to say she'll probably stay all night."

"Is your wife worse?"

He lifted the black brows that contrasted so sharply with the pallor of the face. "Really you get ahead of me, my dear. I don't recall ever getting married."

"That's a hateful thing to say," she flamed, and bit her lower lip with small white teeth to keep from telling the squaw-man what she thought of him. The Cree girl he had taken to wife was going down into the Valley of the Shadow to bear him a child while he callously repudiated her.

He opened his fur coat and came to the fireplace. "I can say nicer things--to the right girl," he said, and looked meaningly at her.

"I'll have to go get Susie Lemoine to stay with me," Jessie said hurriedly. "I didn't know Mother wasn't coming home."

She made a move toward a fur lying across the back of a chair.