Edison Marshall

“ His boyhood dream of vengeance would go the way of all his other dreams,—like the smoke of a camp fire lost in the unmeasured spaces of the forest. The shadow that the dark woods had cast upon his spirit seemed to grow and deepen.
But he must act now, while his strength was upon him. To look again into Harold's face might cost him his own resolve. To think of Virginia in his arms, her lips against his, the wicked blood of the man pulsing so close that she could thrill at it and hear it, might set him on fire again. He must destroy the evidence. ”

“ The dread Spirit of the North had lain in ambush for him a long time, but it had conquered him at last.
They made an unearthly picture,—these two so silent in the drifts. Endless about them lay the snow; the winter forest was deep in its eternal silence, the little spruce trees stood patient and inert and queer, under their heavy loads of snow. Never a voice in all the wastes, never a tear of pity or a stretching hand of mercy,—only the cold, only the silence, only the dread solitude of a land untamed,—the unconquerable wild. ”

“ The crust was perfect; Harold could hardly feel the weight of the sled. Bill mushed behind, guided by the gee-pole. The white-draped trees they had known so well spoke no word of farewell.
Could they win through? Were they to know the hardship of the journey, starvation and bitter cold, only to find death in some still, enchanted glen of the forest that stretched in front? Was fate still jesting with them, whispering hope only to shatter them with defeat? Were they to know hunger and exhaustion, pain and travail, until finally their bodies dropped down and yielded to the cold? ”

“ There was no mercy for them in the biting cold. Bill was frightfully worn and spent from his experience of the day and the previous night, and Virginia had lent her own young strength to him. Often he reeled and faltered, and at such times her arm in his kept him up. The miles seemed innumerable and long.
A might that has its seat higher and beyond the mere energy-giving chemistry of their bodies came to their aid. Virginia had never dreamed that she possessed such power of endurance and unfaltering muscles: a spirit born of an unconquerable will rose within her and bore her on. ”

“ The the brave Mulvaney headed into the stream.
As Bill rode into those gray and terrible waters, Virginia's first instinct was to call him back. The word was in her throat, her lips parted, but for a single second she hesitated. It was part of the creed and teachings of the circle in which she moved to put small trust in instinct. By a false doctrine she had been taught that the deepest impulses of her heart and soul were to be set aside before the mandates of convention and society; that she must act a part rather than be herself. ”

“ The only real emotions she had ever known were her love for Harold Lounsbury and her grief at his absence: in these autumn woods she might easily learn all the others. She had never known true loneliness; here, except for her fiance's uncle with whom she had never felt on common ground and two paid employees—the latter, she told herself, did not count—she was as much alone as if she had been cast upon an uninhabited sphere. Already she knew something of the great malevolence that is the eternal tone of the wilderness, the lurking peril that is the North. ”

“ Virginia slept fitfully, waking often to listen to the clamor of the storm, then falling into troubled dreams. Bill lay at the tent mouth for long hours, staring into the darkness.
In the morning the face of the wilderness was changed. Every bough, every spruce needle, every little grass blade had its load of snow. The streams were higher, a cold and terrible beauty dwelt in the forest. The sky was still full of snow, dark flakes against the gray sky, and the clouds were sullen and heavy. Bill rose before daylight to build the fire at the tent mouth. ”

“ They could hate as the she-wolf hates the foe that menaces her cubs, and they could love to the moment of death. He knew that whatever fate life had in store for him it could not change his attitude toward her. She would leave the North and go back to her own people, and still he would be true.
Even in the first instant he knew enough not to hope. They would have their northern adventure together, and then she would leave him to his snows and his trackless forests. She would go to her own land, a place of mirth and joy and warmth, to leave him brooding and silent in his waste places. ”

“ The quality of absolute and omnipresent silence had passed from the wilderness. There was a low stir, a faint murmur that at first was so far off and vague that neither of them could name it.
But slowly the sound grew. The tree tops, silent before with snow, gave utterance; the thickets cracked, stirred, and moved as if some dread spirit were coming to life within them. The candle flickered. A low moan reached them from the chimney. Bill strode to the door and threw it wide. ”

“ The North Wind, a reality now, would be a forgotten myth: she would forget that she had seen the woodland caribou, quivering with irrepressible vigor against the snowfields. The thrill, the exhilaration of battle, the heat of red blood in her veins would be strangers soon: the whole adventure would seem like some happy, impossible dream. Never to hear a friendly voice wishing her good morning, never a returning step on the threshold, the touch of a strong hand in a moment of fear! She was aghast and crushed at the realization that this man was going out of her life forever. ”

“ She too knew the lesson that Bill had learned in his hour of bitterness,—that one moment of heaven may atone for a whole life of struggle and sorrow. One clasp of arms, one whispered message, one mighty impulse of the soul in which eternity is seized and the stars are gathered might glorify the whole bitter struggle of existence. One little kiss might pay for it all. Yet for all that Harold still lived and waited for her in the cabin, she felt that this one little instant of resurrection was irrevocably lost. ”

“ Their adventure had just begun: weeks would pass before she could go home. In those days he could serve her, toil for her, devote himself wholly to her happiness. He could see her face and know her beauty, and it was all worth the price he paid. For life in the North is life in its simplest phases; and the northern men have had a chance to learn that strangest truth of all,—that he who counts the cost of his hour of pleasure shall be crushed in the jaws of Destiny, and that a day of joy may be worth, in the immutable balance of being, a whole life of sorrow. ”

“ And the end of the barrel was against the bear's flesh as he pressed the trigger.
No human eye could follow the lightning events of the next fraction of a second. All that occurred was over and done in the duration of one heart-beat,—before the shudder and explosion in the air from the rifle's report had passed away. One instant, and the three figures seemed all together; Bill crouched with rifle held pointed in his arms, Virginia behind him, the grizzly full upon them both. The next, and Harold stood alone in the snow and the silence,—awed, terrified, and estranged as if in a dream. ”

“ This development was only a fitting part of the tragedy of his life: first his father's murder, his dreams that had never come true, his lost boyhood, his exile in the waste places, and now the lonely years that stretched before him with nothing to atone or redeem. He knew that there could be no other woman in his life. It was well enough for the men of cities to give and take back their love; for them it was only wisdom and good sense, but such a course was impossible to such sons of the forest as he. Life gives but one dream to the forest folk, and they follow it till they die. ”

“ He was a friend and a companion of Joe and Pete: in a measure at least he was of their own kind.
When the white man chooses to descend, even the savages of the forest cannot keep pace with him. Bill knew now why Harold had never written home. The wilderness had seized him body and soul, but not in the embrace of love with which it held Bill. Obviously he had taken the line of least resistance to perdition. He had forgotten the world of men; in reality he was no longer of it. Bill read the truth—a familiar truth in the North—in his crafty, stealthy, yet savage face. ”

“ The forest was laden with the early-morning silence; the trees stood draped in snow. It was cold, too,—the frost gathered quickly on the mufflers that they wore about their lips. All too well they knew what lay before them. Without food to keep their bodies nourished and warm, they could scarcely hope to make the town; their one chance was that somewhere on the trail they would encounter game. How long a chance it was, this late in winter, they knew all too surely. But for all this knowledge Bill and Virginia were cheerful. ”

“ Her first impression of the wilderness was that of a far-stretching desert, forgotten and desolate and unpeopled as the fiery stars. Likewise this was Lounsbury's view, as in the case of every tenderfoot who had preceded him, but Lounsbury would likely grow old and perish without discovering his mistake. Clear eyes are needed to read the secrets of the wild: the dark glass through which he gazed at the world had never cleared. Vosper had lived months and years in the North, but he had only hatred in his heart of these waste places and thus received no glory from them. ”

“ He had not carried a string-end here, but he had made a trail! His snowshoe tracks probably were not yet obliterated under the wind-blown snow. Could he feel his way along them back to the cabin?
The miles were many and long, but he wouldn't have to creep on hands and knees all the way. Perhaps he could walk, stooped, touching the depressions in the snow at every step. In his own soul he did not believe that he had one chance in a hundred of making it through to safety. Crawling, creeping, groping from track to track would wear him out quickly. ”

“ Even the rapids of the river had begun to freeze. Often the clouds broke away at nightfall and let the cold come in,—stabbing, incredible cold that meant death to any human being that was caught without shelter in its grasp. The land locked tight: no more could Bill hunt for his mine in the creek beds. The last of the moose went down to their yarding grounds, and even the far-off glimpse of a caribou was a rarity. The marmots had descended into their burros, the snowshoe rabbit hopped, a lonely figure in the desolation, through the drifts. ”

“ Its presence, in every turn of the trail, filled her with awe. A single misstep, a little instant of hesitation in a crisis, might precipitate her a thousand feet down the canyon to her death. Dead trees swayed, threatening to fall; snow slides roared and rumbled on the far steeps; the quagmire sucked with greedy lips, the trail wandered dimly,—as if it were trying to decoy her away into the fastnesses where the wilderness might claim her. No one had to tell her how easy it would be to lose the trail, never to find it again. The forests were endless ”

“ Even the kindly summer moon lighted the way for hunting creatures to find and rend their prey. The snow trapped the deer in the valleys where the wolf pack might find easy killing; the cold killed the young grouse in the shrubbery; the wind sang a song of death. He pointed out that all the wilderness voices expressed the pain of living,—the sobbing utterance of the coyotes, the song of the wolves in the winter snow, the wail of the geese in their southern migrations. ”

“ But he did not know Harold's gun well enough to trust such a shot. Indeed, he aimed for the great shoulder, the region of the lungs and heart. The gun cracked in the silence.
The bullet went straight home, ripping through the lungs, tearing the great arteries about the heart, shivering even a portion of the heart itself. And yet the grizzly sprang like a demon through the deep snow, straight towards him.
It is no easy thing to face a grizzly's charge. The teeth gleam in red foam, the eyes flash, the great shoulders rock. ”

“ The sight always seemed to intrigue and mystify the wild folk,—the shadowed street, the spire of the moldering church ghostly in the half-light, the long row of unpainted shacks, and the dim, pale gleam of an occasional lighted window. The old bull moose, in rutting days, was wont to pause and call, listen an instant for such answer as the twilight city might give him, then push on through the spruce forests; and often the coyotes gathered in a ring and wailed out their cries over the rooftops. More than once the wolf pack had halted here for a fleeting instant ”

“ He made the effort simply because it was his creed: to struggle as long as his life blood pulsed in his veins. He knew there was no chance to run or dodge. The bear could go at thrice his own pace in the deep snow. His last hope had been that Harold would come to his aid: that the man would stop the bear's charge with Bill's own heavy rifle; but now he knew that Harold's enmity of cowardice had betrayed him.
But at that instant aid came from an unexpected quarter. Virginia was not one to stand helpless or to turn and flee. ”

“ On the day that the three hunters emerged on their snowshoes in search of meat for their depleted larder, the wind pressed gently against it. Because its trunk was rotted away it swayed and fell heavily.
There was nothing particularly memorable in this. All trees die; all of them fall at last. Its particular significance lay in the fact that as it shattered down, sliding a distance on the steep hillside, it scraped the snow from the mouth of a winter lair of a scarcely less venerable forest inhabitant,—a savage, long-clawed, gray-furred grizzly bear. ”