The girl was silent for a moment, and by the clenching of her fists, Brent knew that a struggle was raging within her. She ignored his question, and when she spoke her voice was low, and the words fell with a peculiar dullness of tone: "I, too, have a thing to tell. It is a horrible thing. And when you have heard you will not want to marry me."

The girl paused, and Brent felt suddenly sick and weak. There was a dull ache in his breast that was an actual physical pain, and when the cold breeze fanned his forehead, it struck with a deadly chill. With a mighty effort he recovered, leaned swiftly toward her and was vaguely conscious that she winced at the grip of his fingers upon her arm.

"Tell me!" he cried hoa.r.s.ely. For a single instant his eyes blazed into hers, and then, as though antic.i.p.ating her words, his fingers relaxed their hold and he settled back with a half-articulate moan--"_Oh, G.o.d!_"

"What you have told me," she continued, in the same dull tone, "Is nothing. It is past and gone. It is dead, and its evil died with it. You are a white man. The white man's thoughts are your thoughts, and his standards are your standards. You work the harm, then unjustly you sit in judgment. And the harm does not die with the deed. The shame of it is a thing of the present, and of the future, and it is borne always by the innocent.

"The thing I must tell you is this. I am a half-breed. But my father was not the husband of Wananebish, who is my mother----"

Brent interrupted her with quick, glad cry: "Is that all?" The blood surged hot through his veins. The ache in his breast became a wild singing. And suddenly he realized the grip and the depth of the thing that is called love, with its power to tear and to rend the very foundations of his being. He felt an insane desire to leap and to shout--and the next instant the girl was in his arms and he was crushing her against his breast as he covered her face with hot kisses. And when a few moments later, he released her, he laughed aloud--a laugh that was clear and boyish, and altogether good to hear, while the girl gazed half-fearfully--half-wonderingly into his eyes:

"I--I do not understand," she faltered, "I have known this only for a short time. Henri of the White Water told me of it, and of the shame of it--and then Sister Mercedes--and it is true, because years ago when I was very small, Wananebish told it to Father Ambrose----"

"d.a.m.n Henri of the White Water! And d.a.m.n Sister Mercedes and Father Ambrose!" cried Brent, his eyes narrowing, "What did they tell you for?

What difference does it make?"

"Henri of the White Water told me because he was angry. I would not marry him. I was going to a great convent school, and he said that in the land of the white man I would be an object of scorn--that people would shun me, and point me out with the finger of shame. I did not believe him, so I went to Sister Mercedes, and she told me, also. And so I would not go to the school, and that night I came away from the mission--came back to the Indians." She paused, and as she raised her eyes to his, Brent saw that in their depths a wondrous newborn hope struggled against fear. Her lips moved: "You do not scorn me? You love me--knowing that?"

Again she was in his arms, and his lips were upon hers: "Yes, I love you--love you--love you! You are mine, darling--mine for all time!" She did not resist his arms, and he felt her yielding body press close against his own, as her shoulders heaved in short, quick sobs.

Softly, almost timidly, her arms stole about his neck, and her tear-jeweled eyes raised to his: "And you would marry me, not knowing who I am?"

"Yes, darling," rea.s.sured Brent, "Neither knowing nor caring who you are. It is enough that you are the dearest, and most beautiful, and the most lovable woman in the whole world of women. Why, girl, the wonder is not that I love you--but that you could love me, after what I told you."

"It is the answer to your question," she smiled, "It means that love is the strongest thing in all the world--stronger than hate, stronger than race, or laws, or codes of ethics. Love is supreme!"

"And that means, then, that my love for hooch will conquer my hate for it?"

"No!" breathed the girl, and Brent could feel her arms tighten about his neck. "For your love for hooch has not only to overcome your hate for it, but it must also overcome your love for me, and my love for you. I am not afraid to fight it out with hooch for your love! If I cannot make myself more to you than hooch ever can, I would not be worthy of your love!"

"My darling," whispered Brent, his lips close to her ear, "You have won already. I will promise----"

He was interrupted by her fingers upon his lips, shutting off the words.

"No--dear," she hesitated a second at the unfamiliar word, "You must not promise--yet. It is easy to promise, out here in the barrens, where you have me in your arms, and the hooch is far away. I ask no odds of hooch.

Wait till you have stood the test. I am not afraid. I have not much learning, but some things I know. I know that, holding a promise in as high regard as you hold one, if anything should happen--if you should drink hooch just once, the promise would be broken--and never again would a promise be just the same. We have a war with hooch--you and I.

And we are going to win. But, in the histories I have read of few wars where every battle was won by the same army. Some of the battles we must expect to lose--but the _war_ we will win."

"Not much learning," smiled Brent, looking into the depths of the dark eyes, "But the concentrated wisdom of the ages--the wisdom that is the heritage of woman, and which not one woman in a thousand learns to apply."

For a long time the two sat beside their little fire, add in the gloom of the early darkness, they made their way toward the river.

CHAPTER XVII

IN THE CABIN OF THE _BELVA LOU_

For two weeks Brent and Snowdrift were together each day from dawn until dark. Leaving Joe Pete to work the claim on the Coppermine, they burned into the gravel on a creek that gave promise, and while their fire slowly thawed out the muck, they hunted. When at a depth of four feet they had not struck a color, Brent gave it up.

"No use," he said, one day as he tossed the worthless pebbles from his pan. "If there was anything here, we'd have found at least a trace. I'm going to hit down the river and have a look at the Copper Mountains."

"Take me with you!" cried the girl, eagerly, "How long will you be gone?"

"I wish I could," smiled Brent, "But Joe Pete and I will be gone two weeks--a month--maybe longer. It depends on what we find. If we were only married, what a great trip it would be! But, never mind, sweetheart, we've got a good many trips coming--years and years of them."

"But that isn't now," objected the girl, "What will I do all the while you are gone? Each morning I hurry here as fast as I can, and each evening I am sorry when the darkness comes and I must leave you."

The man drew her close, "Yes, darling," he whispered, "I understand. The hours I spend away from you are long hours, and I count them one by one.

I do not want to go away from you, but it is for you that I must make a strike."

"I would rather have you with me than have all the strikes in the world!"

"I know--but we don't want to spend all our days in this G.o.d-forgotten wilderness, fighting famine, and the strong cold. We want to go far away from all this, where there is music, and books, and life! You've got it coming, little girl--but first we must make a strike."

"And, we will not be married until you make your strike?" The dark eyes looked wistfully into his, and Brent smiled:

"Strike or no strike, we will be married in the spring!" he cried, "and if the strike has not been made, we'll make it together."

"Will we be married at the mission?"

"No--at Dawson."

"Dawson!" cried the girl, "And I shall really see Dawson? But, isn't it very far?"

Brent laughed: "Yes, you will really see Dawson--and you won't see much when you see it, in comparison with what you will see when we quit the North and go back to the States. In the spring you and Wananebish, and Joe Pete and I will take a month's vacation--and when we come back, darling, we will have each other always."

"But, if you do not make a strike?" questioned the girl, "What then?

Would you be happy here in the North--with me?"

"Sweetheart," answered Brent, "If I knew to a certainty that I should never make a strike--that I should always live in these barrens, I would marry you anyway--and call the barrens blessed. But, I will make a strike! It is for you--and I cannot fail! Oh, if I hadn't been such a fool!"

The girl smiled into his eyes: "If you hadn't been such a--a fool, you would never have come to the barrens. And I--I would always have been just an Indian--hating the white man, hating the world, living my life here and there, upon the lakes and the rivers, in cabins and tepees, with just enough education to long for the better things, and with my heart bursting with pain and bitterness in the realization that those things were not for me."

"It is strange how everything works out for the best," mused Brent, "The whys and the wherefores of life are beyond my philosophy. Sordid, and twisted, and wrong as they were, my Dawson days, and the days of the years that preceded them were all but the workings of destiny--to bring you and me together up here on the rim of the Arctic.

"It was a great scheme, little girl," he smiled, suddenly breaking into a lighter mood, "And the beauty of it is--it worked. But what I was getting at is this: it don't seem reasonable that after going to all that trouble to bring us together, and taking such liberties with my reputation, Old Man Destiny is going to make us fill out the rest of the time punching holes in gravel, and snaring rabbits, and hunting caribou."

That evening they said good bye upon the edge of the clearing that surrounded the Indian encampment, and as Brent turned to go he drew a heavy bag from his pocket and handed it to the girl, "Keep this till I come back," he said, "It's gold."

"Oh, it is heavy!" cried the girl in surprise.

Brent smiled, "Weighs up pretty big now. But when we make our strike it won't be a shoestring. But come--one more good bye and I must be going.

I've got to pack my outfit for an early start."

One day a week later Brent stood with Joe Pete on the northernmost ridge of the Copper Mountains and gazed toward the coast of the Arctic Ocean.

Almost at their feet, buried beneath snow and ice were the b.l.o.o.d.y Falls of the Coppermine and to the northward, only snow. Brent was surprised, for he knew that the ridge upon which he was standing could not be more than ten or twelve miles from the coast, but he also knew that he could see for twenty miles or more, and that the only thing that met the eye was a gently undulating plain of snow, unbroken by even so much as a twig or a bush, or a hillock worthy the name. Never, he thought, as his glance swept the barren, treeless waste, had eyes of mortal man beheld its equal for absolute bleak desolation.