James Oliver Curwood

“ The Snow Fox was dead asleep and it was horribly lonely. It was a dark night, too, with the shivering wailing of a restless wind in the tree tops; the sort of night that makes loneliness grow until it is like some kind of a monster inside, choking off one's breath. And on Upso-Gee's tepee, with the firelight dancing on it, there was painted in red a grotesque fiend with horns—a medicine man, or devil chaser; and this devil chaser grinned in a bloodthirsty manner at David as he sat near the fire, as if gloating over some dreadful fate that awaited him. ”

“ A low wind was beginning to move in the tops of the spruce and cedar, and soft splashes of snow fell on their heads and shoulders, as if unseen and playful hands were pelting them from above. Again and again David caught the swift, ghostly flutter of the snow owls; three times he heard the wolf-howl; once again Baree's dismal, homeless cry; and then they came suddenly out of the thick gloom of the forest into the twilight gray of a clearing. Twenty paces from them was a cabin. The dogs stopped. Father Roland fumbled at his big silver watch, and held it close up to his eyes. ”

“ Baree was still watching Thoreau, who sat staring at him as if the beast had suddenly changed his shape and species.
In David's breast there was the thrill of a new triumph. He had done it unconsciously, without fear, and without feeling that there had been any great danger. In those few minutes something of his old self had returned into him; he felt a new excitement pumping the blood through his heart, and he felt the warm glow of it in his body. Baree had awakened something within him—Baree and the club. He went to Thoreau, who had risen from the log. ”

“ A cold, invisible hand was clutching at David's throat. Shadows hid his face, or Father Roland would have seen. His voice was strained. He forced it between his lips.
"Yes, her spirit," came the Missioner's answer, and David heard the scrape of his knife as he cleaned out the bowl of his pipe. "It haunts Tavish. It is with him always. And he is afraid of it!"
David rose slowly to his feet and went toward the door, slipping on his coat and cap. "I'm going to whistle for Baree," he said, and went out. The white world was brilliant under the glow of a full moon and a billion stars. ”

“ MARGE O'DOONE CHAPTER I
If you had stood there in the edge of the bleak spruce forest, with the wind moaning dismally through the twisting trees—midnight of deep December—the Transcontinental would have looked like a thing of fire; dull fire, glowing with a smouldering warmth, but of strange ghostliness and out of place. It was a weird shadow, helpless and without motion, and black as the half-Arctic night save for the band of illumination that cut it in twain from the first coach to the last, with a space like an inky hyphen where the baggage car lay. ”

“ Wapi and his Indians were going, and he heard now a weird and growing chant, a savage paean to the wild gods of the Moulting Moon. A gasp rose in his throat. It was almost a cry. His last hope was going—with Wapi and his tribe! Would they help him if they knew? If he shouted? If he shrieked for them through that open window? It was a mad thought, an impossible thought, but it set his heart throbbing for a moment. And then—suddenly—it seemed to stand still. A key rattled, turned; the door opened—and Marge O'Doone stood before him! ”

“ They would not have sat up until that late hour in the smoking compartment, and this strange little man of the forest would not have told him the story of a lonely cabin up on the edge of the Barrens—a story of strange pathos and human tragedy that had, in some mysterious way, unsealed his own lips. David had kept to himself the shame and heartbreak of his own affliction since the day he had been compelled to tell it, coldly and without visible emotion, to gain his own freedom. He had meant to keep it to himself always. ”

“ David moved toward it, gazing at the edge of the forest in which he thought he had heard a sound that was like the creak of a sledge runner. He hoped it was Tavish returning. For several moments he listened with his back to the cabin. Then he turned. He was very close to the thing hanging from the sapling. It was swinging slightly. The moon shone on it, and then—Great God! A face—a human face! A face, bearded, with bulging, staring eyes, gaping mouth—a grin of agony frozen in it! ”

“ Early on the eleventh day they came to the confluence of the Pitman and the Stikine rivers, and a little later Kio turned back on his homeward journey, and David and Baree were alone. This aloneness fell upon them like a thing that had a pulse and was alive. They crossed the Divide and were in a great sunlit country of amazing beauty and grandeur, with wide valleys between the mountains. It was July. From up and down the valley, from the breaks between the peaks and from the little gullies cleft in shale and rock that crept up to the snow lines, came a soft and droning murmur. ”

“ David saw in it a strange yearning, a deep fear, a hope. Baree, outlawed by man, battered and bleeding as he lay there, felt for perhaps the first time in his life the thrilling presence of a friend—a man friend. David approached boldly, and stood over him. He had forgotten the Frenchman's warning. He was not afraid. He leaned over and one of his mittened hands touched Baree's neck. A tremor shot through the dog that was like an electric shock; a snarl gathered in his throat, broke down, and ended in a low whine. He lay as if dead under the weight of David's hand. ”

“ His lungs drank in the cold, balsam-scented air like a suction pump and expelled each breath with the sibilancy of steam escaping from a valve.
"Winded!" he gasped. And then, gulping for breath as he looked at Father Roland, he demanded: "How the devil am I going to keep up with you fellows on the trail? I'll go bust inside of a mile!"
"And every time you go bust we'll load you on the sledge," comforted the Missioner, his round face glowing with enthusiastic approval. "You've done finely, David. Within a fortnight you'll be travelling twenty miles a day on snow shoes." ”

“ Her running away was the most natural thing in the world—for her. She was an amazingly spontaneous little creature, full of courage and a fierce determination to fight some one, but probably to-day or to-morrow she would have been forced to turn homeward, quite exhausted with her adventure, and nibbling roots along with Tara to keep herself alive. The thought of her hunger and of the dire necessity in which he had found her, drove the smile from his lips. He was finishing his pack when she left the bear and came to him.
"If we are to get over the mountain before dark we must hurry," she said. ”

“ The next instant Hauck was at the open door. He did not cross the threshold at once, but stood there for perhaps twenty seconds—his gray, hard face looking in on them with eyes in which there was a cold and sinister glitter. Brokaw, with the fumes of liquor thick in his brain, tried to nod an invitation for him to enter; his head rolled grotesquely and his voice was a croak. David rose slowly to his feet, thrusting back his chair. From contemplating Brokaw's sagging body, Hauck's eyes were levelled at him. ”

“ Father Roland pointed down, and spoke no word.
It was a woman. The moonlight fell upon her, and shimmered in the thick masses of dark hair that streamed about her, concealing her face. David choked. It was his heart in his throat. He bent down. Gently he lifted the heavy tresses, and stared into the sleeping face that was under them—the face of the woman he had met that night on the Transcontinental! ”

“ One night they returned to the Château through a blizzard from the cabin of a half-breed whose wife was sick, and after their supper the Missioner went into the mystery-room. He played the violin as usual. But after that there was a long silence. When Father Roland came out, and seated himself opposite David at the small table on which their books were scattered, David received a shock. Clinging to the Missioner's shoulder, shimmering like a polished silken thread in the lampglow, was a long, shining hair—a woman's hair. ”

“ From it there came a growling rumble, a deep breath that was like air escaping from a pair of bellows, and he saw faintly a huge, motionless shape beyond the stripped and upright sapling trunks.
"Grizzly," said Brokaw, trying to keep himself on an even balance. "Big bear-fight to-morrow, Mac. My bear—her bear—a great fight! Everybody in to see it. Nothing like a bear-fight, eh? S'prise her, won't it—pretty little wench! When she sees her bear fighting mine? Betchu hundred dollars my bear kills Tara!"
"To-morrow," said David. "I'll bet to-morrow. Where's the shack?" ”

“ But never, never have I seen a fight like this that is being made by Tavish—a fight against that mysterious fear, of which he will not speak. I would give a year of my life—yes, even more—to help him. There is something about him that is lovable, that makes you want to cling to him, be near him. But he will have none of that. He wants to be alone with his fear. Is it not strange? I have pieced little things together, and that night—when terror drove him to my cabin—he betrayed himself, and I learned one thing. He is afraid of a woman!"
"A woman!" gasped David. ”

“ Out of the North came armies of snow-laden clouds that scudded just above the earth, and with these clouds came now and then a shrieking mockery of wind to taunt this stricken creation of man and the creatures it sheltered—men and women who had begun to shiver, and whose tense white faces stared with increasing anxiety into the mysterious darkness of the night that hung like a sable curtain ten feet from the car windows. ”

“ His eyes rested on the shaggy, undulating backs of the big huskies; he noted their half-open jaws, the sharp alertness of their pointed ears, the almost joyous unction with which they entered into their task, their eagerness to keep their load close upon the heels of their masters. He heard Mukoki's short, sharp, and unnecessary commands, his hi-yi's and his ki-yi's, as though he were crying out for no other reason than from sheer physical exuberance. He saw Father Roland's face turned backward for a moment, and it was smiling. They were happy—now! Men and beasts were happy. ”

“ That music was always in the air, for the rivers, the creeks, and the tiny streams, gushing down from the snow that lay eternally up near the clouds, were never still. There were sweet perfumes as well as music in the air. The earth was bursting with green; the early flowers were turning the sunny slopes into coloured splashes of red and white and purple—splashes of violets and forget-me-nots, [Pg 182] of wild asters and hyacinths. David looked upon it all, and his soul drank in its wonders. ”

“ Out of Brokaw there came a cry that was like the low roar of a beast; a cry that was the most inhuman sound David had ever heard from a human throat, and in an instant he found himself battling not for victory, not for that opportunity he twice had missed, but for his life. Against that rushing bulk, enraged almost to madness, the ingenuity of his training alone saved him from immediate extinction. ”

“ If some one is coming after you, and you're bound to fight. I'll help you. Will that bear bite?"
He swung off his pack and put down his gun. For a moment the girl stared at him with widening eyes. The fear went out of them slowly. Her hand unclenched, and suddenly she turned to the big grizzly and clasped her bared arms about the shaggy monster's neck.
"Tara, Tara, it isn't one of them!" she cried. "It isn't one of them—and we thought it was!"
She whirled on David with a suddenness that took his breath away. It was like the swift turning of a bird. He had never seen a movement so quick. ”

“ Is one a coward because he fears whispers that tremble in the air and sees a face in the darkness of night that is neither living nor dead? Is he?"
For a long time after he had gone to bed David lay wide awake in the darkness, his mind working until it seemed to him that it was prisoned in an iron chamber from which it was making futile efforts to escape. He could hear the steady breathing of Father Roland and Mukoki, who were asleep. His own eyes he could close only by forced efforts to bring upon himself the unconsciousness of rest. ”

“ He filled his pipe for the third or fourth time and sat down on the edge of the bunk, listening for Tavish. He was certain, from all that had been said, that Tavish would come. All he had to do was wait. There had been growing in him, a bit unconsciously at first, a feeling of animosity toward Tavish, an emotion that burned in him with a gathering fierceness as he sat alone in the dim light of the cabin, grinding out in his mental restlessness visions of what Tavish might have done. Conviction had never been stronger in him. Tavish, if he had guessed correctly, was a fiend. ”

“ The exchange of gold between Hauck and the Red Brute had probably been for something else. Even men engulfed in the brutality of the trade they were in would not think of such an appalling crime. And then—with a fierceness that made his blood boil—came the thought of that time when Brokaw had caught her in his arms, and had held her head back until it hurt—and had kissed her! Baree had crept between his knees, and David's fingers closed so tightly in the loose skin of his neck that the dog whined. ”

“ The big, wolf-like beast made no sound after that first growl, and made no movement. And yet every muscle in his body seemed gathered in a tense readiness to spring, and his gleaming fangs threatened. He was ferocious, and yet shrinking; ready to leap, and yet afraid. He was like a thing at bay—a hunted creature that had been prisoned. And then David noticed that he had but one good eye. It was bloodshot, balefully alert, and fixed on him like a round ball of fire. ”

“ Then, suddenly, he dropped on his belly and began crawling toward him.
A spatter of moonlight fell upon them as David, crouching on his heels, gave Baree the fish, holding for a moment to the tail of it while the hungry beast seized its head between his powerful jaws with a grinding crunch. The power of those jaws sent a little shiver through the man so close to them. They were terrible—and splendid. A man's leg-bone would have cracked between them like a pipe stem. ”