G. B. Lancaster

“ He did not know when more lights leaped out above the altar; when a monk passed up the side-aisle, brushing him with black garments; when, obeying the tolling bell, a half-score villagers drifted in for the midnight service.
Then—sudden, strong, majestic—the chant of the monks clashed into the silence. The sound brought Windham to his feet, with pulses hammering in his ears. ”

“ Cunningly, over their pipes, Strickland strove to lead the talk back to the little White Girl and all that she had meant in two men's lives. But the lever of Windham's will side-tracked him each time, and the long night dragged itself into a frozen pink dawn leaving Gary's name still unspoken. Then, beyond the shack end, the sledge dogs roused to bark in savage eagerness, and Windham looked at his watch.
"Good business," he said. "Hope he's brought decent dogs."
"The man himself doesn't seem to worry you any. ”

“ Windham heard and was angry, but the little White Girl looked down on Gary meditatively.
"I shall call you Scylla and Charybdis," she said.
Gary straightened himself with a jerk. He was buckling her skies.
"What in the land——"
The little White Girl nodded her head. It was a way she had, and it invested her for the moment with a sweet intentness.
"You are both so very interesting and so dangerous, you know. If a girl doesn't fall in love with one she's bound to do it with the other. I'm quite safe, of course, because I love you both. But others may not be so cosmopolitan as I am—or you?" ”

“ It is probable that the same thought had entered into each man. For that one smite of Gary's hand had wiped out of Windham all but a bitter hate, and those half-score sobbing words from the little White Girl were a corroding acid in Gary's blood. ”

“ But they pulled; they pulled until they fell in the lines and lay dead, and their mates, with slinking shame and sidewise looks, crawled round and ate them.
And thereafter the two white men reeled on alone through the solitudes, dragging the sleds, enduring to the utmost, seeking neither pity nor help one from the other. ”

“ If I had to go where you're going with only one human being to see me through I guess I'd take rather particular interest in that human being."
"Why so? All hired men are alike. They do as they're told—or you make them do it. He's got dogs with fight in 'em by the sound, I think."
Then some one hammered on the shack door, thrust it open, and walked in.
It was Strickland who came to his feet with an oath. Windham sat still. But on his left cheek he believed that the two-year-old slap from this man's hand was yet throbbing. He looked Gary between the eyes. ”

“ Against the white snow the crucifixes stood up very black, very clear.
"He's your friend," whispered the little White Girl. "You know him better than any one."
"Yes."
"Then tell me ... can I trust him? Does he always mean what he says?"
"To me. Yes."
"But ... to a girl?"
"How should I know? Ask him!"
"You must know. Have there ever been other girls ...? Has he ... done this often before?"
How often Windham could not remember. Through Gary's gay uncaring life it had been more times than many. But since Judas betrayed his Friend no man has done this thing lightly. "Most men do. ”

“ They skied and skated and climbed mountains, always with the little White Girl in the middle. They joined moonlight tailing-parties where the runners hummed on the crisp snow and it was necessary for Windham or Gary to hold the little White Girl very closely at the curves. ”

“ But he had the litheness of a cat. and the tenacity of an ant. and Gary was the only living thing which had ever bounced Windham. Gary followed, with his blue eyes roving and his big body swinging carelessly. His lips were puckered into a whistle and his crisp curly hair was roughened. The man next Strickland grunted.
"Your Gary is a pretty tough proposition," he said. "And there are some jolly girls here. I think we are going to have what our waiter calls 'some excitements.' "
"The little White Girl can beat them all hollow," said Strickland. ”