A Mating in the Wilds | Page 5

done his best to forget. He started to his feet and stepping
outside the tent began to walk restlessly to and fro. The music ended
and he stood still to listen. Now no sound except the ripple of the river
broke the quiet, and after a moment he nodded to himself. "Now, he
will come."
The thin pungent song of a mosquito impinged upon the stillness,
something settled on his neck and there followed a swift sting like the
puncture of a hypodermic needle. Instantly he slapped the place with
his hand, and retreated behind his smoke-smudge. There he threw
himself once more on the pack that served him for seat and waited, as it
seemed interminably.
His fire died down, the smoke ceased to hide the view, and through the
adjacent willows came the sudden sough of moving air. A robin broke
into song, and once more the wail of the loon sounded from the wide
river. Away to the north the sky flushed with crimson glory, then the
sun shot up red and golden. A new day had broken; and Stane had
watched through the brief night of the Northland summer for a man
who had not appeared and he was now assured, would not come.
He laughed bitterly, and rising kicked the fire together, threw on fresh
fuel, and after one look towards the still sleeping Post, returned to the
tent, wrapped himself in a blanket, and shortly after fell asleep.
Three hours later he was awakened by a clatter of voices and the

clamour of barking dogs, passing from sleep to full wakeness like a
healthy child. Kicking the blanket from him he slipped on his
moccasins and stepped outside where the source of the clamour at once
manifested itself. A party of Indians had just beached their canoes, and
were exchanging greetings with another party, evidently that whose
tepees stood on the meadow outside the fort, for among the women he
saw the Indian girl who had fled through the willows after encountering
him. He watched the scene with indifferent eyes for a moment or two,
then securing a canvas bucket went down to the river for water, and
made his toilet. That done, he cooked his breakfast, ate it, tided up his
camp, and lighting a pipe strolled into the enclosure of the Post. Several
Indians were standing outside the store, and inside the factor and his
clerk were already busy with others; bartering for the peltries brought
from the frozen north to serve the whims of fashion in warmer lands. In
the Square itself stood the plump gentleman who had landed the day
before, talking to a cringing half-breed, whilst a couple of ladies with
him watched the aborigines outside the store with curious eyes. Stane
glanced further afield. Two men were busy outside the warehouse, a
second half-breed sprawled on the bench by the store, but the man for
whom he had waited through the night was not in sight.
With a grimace of disappointment he moved towards the store. As he
did so a little burst of mellow laughter sounded, and turning swiftly he
saw the man whom he was looking for round the corner of the
warehouse accompanied by a girl, who laughed heartily at some remark
of her companion. Stane halted in his tracks and looked at the pair who
were perhaps a dozen yards or so away. The monocled Ainley could
not but be aware of his presence, yet except that he kept his gaze
resolutely averted, he gave no sign of being so. But the girl looked at
him frankly, and as she did so, Hubert Stane looked back, and caught
his breath, as he had reason to.
She was fair as an English rose, moulded in spacious lines like a
daughter of the gods, with an aureole of glorious chestnut hair, shot
with warm tints of gold and massed in simplicity about a queenly head.
Her mouth was full, her chin was softly strong, her neck round and firm
as that of a Grecian statue, and her eyes were bluey-grey as the mist of

the northern woods. Fair she was, and strong--a true type of those
women who, bred by the English meadows, have adventured with their
men and made their homes in the waste places of the earth.
Her grey eyes met Stane's quite frankly, without falling, then turned
nonchalantly to her companion, and Stane, watching, saw her speak,
and as Ainley flashed a swift glance in his direction, and then replied
with a shrug of his shoulders, he easily divined that the girl had asked a
question about himself. They passed him at half a dozen yards distance,
Ainley with his face set like a flint, the girl with a scrutinizing sidelong
glance that set the