Edison Marshall

“ Could he spare her such bitter, terrible hours that he and Bess must endure, following the trap lines over the wild? Must she be cursed and lashed and tortured by the cold, know the torment of worn-out muscles, only to be rewarded by the knout for failing to bring in a sufficient catch of furs? Doomsdorf would be more exacting, rather than more lenient, in these months to come. He had been willing enough for Ned to do Lenore's share in the work of laying in winter fuel; but the size of the fur catch was a matter of greater moment to him. ”

“ Death was a word to conjure with no more. It was no harder for him to think of than the fall of a tree beneath his axe. The terror that surrounded it was ever only a specter: and in the clear vision that came to him in those terrible twilights, only realities were worth the effort of thought. The physical torture of staggering through the snow back to the cabin was so infinitely worse than any conception that he could retain of death; the life that stretched before him was so absolutely bereft of hope that the elemental dread of what lay beyond would not have restrained him an instant. ”

“ His axe was in his arms; his savage taskmaster faced him from the cabin doorway.
All these thoughts coursed through Ned's keenly wakened brain in an instant. They seemed as instantaneous as the flood of wrath that had swept through him at Doomsdorf's irony. And now would he suffer some unspeakable punishment for insolence to his master?
But little, amused lines came about Doomsdorf's fierce eyes. “A good workman, eh?” he echoed. “Yes, you did work fair enough yesterday. Wait just a minute.” ”

“ The fact that Lenore shirked her share meant that at the close of every day, in order to complete the allotment provided, Ned and Bess had to drive themselves beyond that point, practically to the border of utter collapse. The short rests that they might otherwise have allowed themselves, those blessed moments of relaxation wherein the run-down batteries of their energy were recharged, they dared not take. The result was hour upon hour of such sustained toil that it seemed impossible that human frames could bear the strain. ”

“ Ned protested. “We're not experienced——”
“You'll learn quick enough. Aren't you the dominant race? And I warn you again—you'd better drop bitter tears every time you find where a wolverine has been along and eaten an ermine out of a trap!”
The man was not jesting. They knew him well enough by now; the piercing glitter of his keen, gray eyes, the odd fixation about his pupils that was always manifest when he was most in earnest, was plainly in evidence now. Thus it was with the most profound amazement that Lenore's companions suddenly saw her beautiful mouth curling in a smile. ”

“ Four days more the three of them worked at the task of laying in fuel,—Ned doing the lion's share of the work, of course; Bess toiling to the limit of her fine, young strength; Lenore making the merest pretense. The result of the latter's idleness was, of course, that her two companions had to divide her share of work between them. Every day Doomsdorf allotted them certain duties,—so many trees to cut up into stove wood, or some other, no less arduous duty ”

“ Evidently the human body has incredible powers of adaptation to new environment. While, at the end of the day's toil, it seemed beyond all possibility that they could ever stagger back to the cabins, when the only wish they had left was to lie still in the snow and let the bitter cold take its toll, yet a few minutes' relaxation in the warmth of the stove always heartened them and gave them strength to take their places at the supper table. ”

“ A man could go thinly garbed on such days as this and, except for an aching chill through out his frame, suffer no disagreeable consequences; but such wouldn't hold true in the forty-below-zero weather that impended. Only fur and the thickest woolens could avail in the months to come.
Besides, the trapper's life offered more of interest than that of the woodchopper. It would carry him through those gray valleys and over the rugged hills that now, when he had time to look about him, seemed to invite his exploration. Best of all, the work would largely carry him away from Doomsdorf's presence. ”

“ On each one I've built series of huts, or shacks, all of them with a stove and supplies of food, and you put up in them for the night. They are a day's march apart, giving you time to pick up your skins, reset, and so on, as you go. Believe me, you won't have any time to loaf. After you get into the cabins at night, eat your supper and get some of the frost out of your blood, you'll enjoy thawing out and skinning the animals you've caught in your trap. If it's a big animal, dead and frozen and too big to carry, you'll have to make a fire out in the snow and thaw him out there. ”

“ Why, work was the beginning and the end of everything. Reaching back to the beginnings of creation, extending clear until the last soul in heaven had passed on and through the training camp of the last hereafter, it was the thing that counted most. ”

“ As the days passed, it was no longer necessary to seek their cots the instant they left the table. They took to lingering a little while in the crude chairs about the stove, mostly sitting silent in absolute dejection, but sometimes exchanging a few, primitive thoughts. Very little mattered to them now but food and shelter and sleep. They were down to the absolute essentials. As the days passed, however, they began to take time for primitive, personal toilets. ”

“ It was unthinkable that Ned could handle to the best advantage both Lenore's trap line and his own. Work as hard as he might, long into the night hours, one man couldn't possibly return two men's catch. ”

“ The great penalty of such a life as he had lived, wherein almost every material thing came into his hands at his wish, is that it costs the power to feel delight, the simple joy and gratitude of children; but evidently Ned was learning how again. Just a saw of steel and wedges of iron for splitting! Workmen's tools that he once regarded with contempt. But oh, they would save him many a weary hour of labor. The saw could cut through the fallen logs in half the time he could hack them with his axe; they could be split in half the number of strokes with the aid of the wedges.
He went to his toil ”