Gently his hand went out and came to rest upon the angular shoulder. And when he spoke the tone of his voice, even more than his words, rea.s.sured the woman. "There are many such white men," he said, soothingly. "You need not fear. I am your friend, and the friend of Snowdrift. I, like yourself, am here to find gold, and like yourself, I too, hate the traders of hooch--and with reason." He stepped to the stove, upturned the bench and recovered his cap. And as the old woman rose to her feet, Brent saw that the look of intense hatred had been supplanted by a look, which if not exactly of friendliness, was at least one of pa.s.sive tolerance. At the doorway he paused, hesitated for a moment, and then, point blank, flashed the question that for days had been uppermost in his mind: "Who is Snowdrift?"

Wananebish leaned against a stanchion of the bunk. Instinctively, her savage heart knew that the white man standing before had spoken the truth. Her eyes closed, and for a moment, in the withered breast raged a conflict. Then her eyes opened, her lips moved, and she saw that the man was straining eagerly toward her to catch the words: "Snowdrift is my daughter," she said.

Brent hesitated. He had been quick to catch the flash of the eye that had accompanied the words, a flash more of defiance than of anger. It was upon his tongue to ask who was Murdo MacFarlane, but instead he bowed: "I must go now. I shall be coming here often. I hope I shall not be unwelcome."

The look of pa.s.sive tolerance was once more in her eyes, and she shrugged so noncommittally that Brent knew that for the present, if he had not gained an ally, he had at least, eliminated an enemy.

As the man plodded down the river, his thoughts were all of the girl.

The stern implacability of her as she stood in the doorway of the cabin and ordered him from the encampment. The swift a.s.surance with which she a.s.sumed leadership as the storm roared down upon them. The ingenuous announcement that they must spend the night--possibly several nights in the barrens. And the childlike navete of the words that unveiled her innermost thoughts. The compelling charm of her, her beauty of face and form, and the lithe, untiring play of her muscles as she tramped through the new-fallen snow. Her unerring sense of direction. Her simple code of morals regarding the killing of men. Her every look, and word and movement was projected with vivid distinctness upon his brain. And then his thoughts turned to the little cabin that was her home, and to the leathern skinned old woman who told him she was the girl's mother.

"The squaw lied!" he uttered fiercely. "Never in G.o.d's world is Snowdrift her daughter! But--who is she?"

He rounded the last bend of the river and brought up shortly. Joe Pete was stoking the fire with wood, and upon the gravel dump, sat the girl apparently very much interested in the operation.

Almost at the same instant she saw him, and Brent's heart leaped within him at the glad little cry that came to him over the snow, as the girl scrambled to her feet and hurried toward him. "Where have you been?" she asked. "I came to hunt--and you were gone. So I waited for you to come, and I watched Joe Pete feed the fire in the hole."

Brent's fingers closed almost caressingly over the slender brown hand that was thrust into his and he smiled into the upraised eyes: "I, too, went to hunt. I went to your cabin, and your--mother," despite himself, the man's tongue hesitated upon the word, "told me that you had gone with the women to bring in the meat."

"Oh, you have seen Wananebish!" cried the girl, "And she was glad to see you?"

"Well," smiled Brent, "Perhaps not so awfully glad--right at first. But Wananebish and I are good friends, now."

"I am glad. I love Wananebish. She is good to me. She has deprived herself of many things--sometimes I think, even of food, that I might stay in school at the mission. And now it is too late to hunt today, and I am hungry. Let us go in the cabin and eat."

"Fine!" cried Brent, "Hey, Joe Pete, cut some caribou steaks, and I'll build up the fire!" He turned again to the girl, "Come on," he laughed, "I could eat a raw dog!"

"But, there is plenty of meat!" cried the girl, "And you'll need the dogs! Only when men are starving will they eat their dogs--and not _raw_!"

Brent laughed heartily into the dismayed face: "You need not be afraid, we will save the dogs till we need them. That was only a figure of speech. I meant that I am very hungry, and that, if I could find nothing else to eat I should relish even raw dog meat."

Snowdrift was laughing, now: "I see!" she cried, "In books are many such sayings. It is a metaphor--no, not a metaphor--a--oh, I don't remember, but anyway I am glad you said that because I thought such things were used only in the language of books--and maybe I can say one like that myself, someday."

At the door of the cabin they removed their snowshoes, and a few moments later a wood fire was roaring in the little stove. Joe Pete came in with the frozen steaks, set them down upon the table, and moved toward the door, but Brent called him back. "You're in on this feed! Get busy and fry up those steaks while I set the table."

The Indian hesitated, glanced shrewdly at Brent as if to ascertain the sincerity of the invitation, and throwing off his parka, busied himself at the stove, while Brent and Snowdrift, laughing and chattering like children, placed the porcelain lined plates and cups and the steel knives and forks upon the uneven pole table.

The early darkness was gathering when they again left the cabin.

Snowdrift paused to watch Joe Pete throw wood into the flames that leaped from the mouth of the shallow shaft: "Why do you have the fire in the hole?" she asked of Brent, who stood at her side.

"Why, to thaw the gravel so we can throw it out onto the dump. Then in the spring, we'll sluice out the dump and see what we've got."

"Do you mean for gold?" asked the girl in surprise, "We only hunt for gold in the summer in the sand of the creeks and the rivers."

"This way is better," explained Brent. "In the summer you can only muck around in the surface stuff. You can't sink a shaft because the water would run in and fill it up. In most places the deeper you go the richer the gravel. The very best of it is right down against bed-rock. In the winter we keep a fire going until the gravel is thawed for six or eight inches down, then we rake out the ashes and wait for the hole to cool down so there will be air instead of gas in it, and then we throw out the loose stuff and build up the fire again."

"And you won't know till spring whether you have any gold or not? Why, maybe you would put in a whole winter's work and get nothing!"

"Oh, we kind of keep cases on it with the pan. Every day or so I scoop up a panful and carry it into the cabin and melt some ice and pan it out."

"And is there gold here? Have you found it?"

"Not yet. That is, not in paying quant.i.ties. The gravel shows just enough color to keep us at it. I don't think it is going to amount to much. So far we're making fair wages--and that's about all."

"What do you mean by fair wages?" smiled the girl. "You see, I am learning all I can about finding gold."

"I expect we're throwing out maybe a couple of ounces a day--an ounce apiece. If it don't show something pretty quick I'm going to try some other place. There's a likely looking creek runs in above here."

"But an ounce of gold is worth sixteen dollars!" exclaimed the girl, "And sixteen dollars every day for each of you is lots of money."

Brent laughed: "It's good wages, and that's about all. But I'm not here just to make wages. I've got to make a strike."

"How much is a strike?"

"Oh, anywhere from a half a million up."

"A half a million dollars!" cried the girl, "Why, what could you do with it all?"

Brent laughed: "Oh I could manage to find use for it, I reckon. In the first place I owe a man some money over on the Yukon--two men. They've got to be paid. And after that--" His voice trailed off into silence.

"And what would you do after that?" persisted the girl.

"Well," answered the man, as he watched the shower of sparks fly upward, "That depends--But, come, it's getting dark. I'll walk home with you."

"Are you going because you think I am afraid?" she laughed.

"I am going because I want to go," he answered, and led off up the river.

As the darkness settled the snow-covered surface of the river showed as a narrow white lane that terminated abruptly at each bend in a wall of intense blackness. Overhead a million stars glittered so brightly in the keen air that they seemed suspended just above the serried skyline of the bordering spruces. At the end of an hour it grew lighter. Through the openings between the flanking spruce thickets long naked ridges with their overhanging wind-carved snow-cornices were visible far back from the river. As they came in sight of the encampment the girl, who was traveling ahead, paused abruptly and with an exclamation of delight, pointed toward a distant ridge upon the clean-cut skyline of which the rim of the full moon showed in an ever widening segment of red. Brent stood close by her side, and together, in wrapt silence they watched the glowing orb rise clear of the ridge, watched its color pale until it hung cold and clean-cut in the night sky like a disk of burnished bra.s.s.

"Isn't it beautiful?" she breathed, and by the gentle pressure that accompanied the words, Brent suddenly knew that her bared hand was in his own, and that two mittens lay upon the snow at their feet.

"Wonderful," he whispered, as his eyes swept the unending panorama of lifeless barrens. "It is as if we two were the only living beings in the whole dead world."

"Oh, I wish--I wish we were!" cried the girl, impulsively. And then: "No that is wrong! Other people--thousands and thousands of them--men, and women, and little babies--they all love to live."

"It is wonderful to live," breathed the man, "And to be standing here--with you--in the moonlight."

"Ah, the moonlight--is it the moonlight that makes me feel so strange--in here?" she raised her mittened hand and pressed it against her breast, "So strange and restless. I want to go--I do not know where--but, I want to do something big--to go some place--any place, but to go, and go, and go!" Her voice dropped suddenly, and Brent saw that her eyes were resting broodingly upon the straggling group of tepees and cabins. A dull square of light glowed sullenly from her own cabin window, and her voice sounded heavy and dull: "But, there is no place to go, and nothing to do, but hunt, and trap, and look for gold. Sometimes I wish I were dead. No I do not mean that--but, I wish I had never lived."

"Nonsense, girl! You love to live! Beautiful, strong, young--why, life is only just starting for--you." Brent had almost said "us."

"But, of what use is it all? Why should one love to live? I am an Indian--yet I hate the Indians--except Wananebish. We fight the hooch traders, yet the men get the hooch. It is no use. I learned to love books at the mission--and there are no books. You are here--with you I am happy. But, if you do not find a strike, you will go away. Or, if we do not find gold, we will go. The Indians will return to the river and become hangers-on at the posts. It is all--no use!"

Brent's arms were about her, her yielding body close against his, and she was sobbing against the breast of his parka. The man's brain was a chaos. In vain he strove to control the trembling of his muscles as he crushed her to him. In an unsteady voice he was murmuring words: "There, there, dear. I am never going away from you--never." Two arms stole about his neck, and Brent's heart pounded wildly as he felt them tighten in a convulsive embrace. He bent down and their lips met in a long, lingering kiss, "Darling," he whispered, with his lips close to her ear, "You are mine--mine! And I am yours. And we will live--live! Tell me Snowdrift--sweetheart--do you love me?"

"I love you!" her lips faltered the simple words, and Brent saw that the dark eyes that looked up into his own glowed in the moonlight like black pools. "Now--I know--it was--not the moonlight--in here--it was love!"

"Yes, darling, it was love. I have loved you since the first moment I saw you."