Edison Marshall

“ For it is true that ordinarily the Aiken camp was not well lighted. In the first place it had been built in the shadow of the pines—those tall, dark, forbidding pines of the Oregon wilderness. And the pine-shadow never seems just an absence of light: it is like a dusky substance in itself that the eyes strain to see through, and which can get into a man's soul, after a certain number of years, and turn his thoughts dark. It is the background on which the Oregon wilderness—far and far in the Cascades—is laid. ”

“ It is hard for a man to break away from. Wolf had lied when he said he would soon turn in. He simply knew that Buck would not go to bed as long as the fire was bright, and he would rather sit cold than have him remain. Besides, the coldness was only at his fingertips and skin and feet, not in his heart or his brain. It was as if he had a fire within himself.
He had no definite plans to carry out after his brother was asleep. He only knew that he wanted to be alone, and he had some vague idea of examining again the two piles of pelts. ”

“ The afternoon was long and still, with hardly a breath of air in the pine-tops. As the hours passed, Wolf's exultation increased. Again and again his hands worked through the piles of pelts, gloating over them, drunk with the knowledge of possession. They were his, all his—for Buck had not returned.
Twilight is always a mystery in the mountains, and just at the drop of it, Wolf started up the river. It was well to pretend to make a search, he thought: he would be able to tell the curious in the valley below how he had hunted over all the hills, and be able to prove it if he wished. ”

“ He looked a long time into the wild waters, fascinated by the faint glow that the fire flung over them. They would clutch a man, those waters; they would hurl him against the great boulders of the river-bed; they would carry him away as sleep had carried Buck,—only from such a sleep he could never awaken.
Wolf's creed was the creed of the beast for which he was named, but it was also the creed of the river: to slay all that could not conquer it. Wolf Aiken rose slowly, and went to the pile of steel traps that the two of them had but recently taken up. ”

“ Tonight he reversed his usual position in the bed, lying with head toward the rear of the tent and the river, rather than the front. To see the stream at all, he had to sit up and turn his head completely about.
THE wilderness at night is almost always still; but tonight the hush that followed was so deep and strange that it had a quality of unreality. The river still sang under it, but did not in the least affect its absolute depth. Wolf, still at the fag-end of his dream, heard his own blood booming in his eardrums, and that was all. ”

“ The men who do not acquire them are merely transients, going out by such swift and certain highways as an unguarded step on a precipice, or failure to find shelter before a blizzard, or an attempt to swim the river at the rapids. These are all one-way roads, as the sign-posts say, and the transients do not come again to commit more blunders.
Wolf Aiken was a young man, scarcely thirty; but the wilderness had already destroyed the outer marks of youth. The skin looked very dark, the hair black and unkempt. ”

“ One more night would he lie in his camp, but only one. In the morning he would go down to the settlements and carry his precious furs with him. The river could be forgotten then. The silence would no longer follow him, and his dreadful watch would be over. After all, it was just his dark thoughts. He would be all right once he got out of the wilderness.
WOLF AIKEN did not even remove his heavy logging-boots before going to his bunk. He wished to leave quickly in the morning. He had packed his few belongings; the pelts still swung from the ridgepole and could be easily strapped on his back. ”

“ Buck said suddenly.
Wolf reached out his lean hand, with suddenly narrowing eyes. “Let me deal, this time,” he demanded.
Wolf was cold himself, but he shook his head. “We'll be turnin' in in a minute. Go ahead and get the bunk warm.”
All men who have been in the wilderness have learned the solace and comfort of a high, bright fire at night. As the flames leap, the memory-cords of a thousand-thousand years begin to hum, and a man crawls out of his civilization as a butterfly from its chrysalis ”

“ Buck Aiken lighted his pipe, and supposed of course that his brother was joining him in this little ritual of friendship. It was true that Wolf held his pipe between his teeth, and in the growing shadows and the smoke from the dying fire, Buck failed to observe that it was not lighted. It was wholly possible that Wolf himself was not aware of the fact.
He wondered why his brother did not turn in. Usually the boy, loving sleep, went quickly to his bunk. Often when Wolf wished to sit and enjoy his pipe before a high fire, he was scarcely able to keep the younger man awake. ”

“ The fire was man's first friend, and even when the darkness no longer holds things to fear, when the eves of the last beast of prey no longer blink and glow in the shadows, the memory of its cheer remains. ”