Children of the Frost | Page 9

chums, a lonely watercourse amid upstanding peaks, a shattered
boat on a pebbly strand, quiet moonlit fields, fat vales, the smell of hay....
A hunter, struck between the eyes with a rifle-ball, pitched forward lifeless, and with the
momentum of his charge slid along the ground. Fairfax came back to himself. His
comrades, those that lived, had been swept far back among the trees beyond. He could

hear the fierce "Hia! Hia!" of the hunters as they closed in and cut and thrust with their
weapons of bone and ivory. The cries of the stricken men smote him like blows. He knew
the fight was over, the cause was lost, but all his race traditions and race loyalty impelled
him into the welter that he might die at least with his kind.
"My man! My man!" Thom cried. "Thou art safe!"
He tried to struggle on, but her dead weight clogged his steps.
"There is no need! They are dead, and life be good!"
She held him close around the neck and twined her limbs about his till he tripped and
stumbled, reeled violently to recover footing, tripped again, and fell backward to the
ground. His head struck a jutting root, and he was half-stunned and could struggle but
feebly. In the fall she had heard the feathered swish of an arrow darting past, and she
covered his body with hers, as with a shield, her arms holding him tightly, her face and
lips pressed upon his neck.
Then it was that Keen rose up from a tangled thicket a score of feet away. He looked
about him with care. The fight had swept on and the cry of the last man was dying away.
There was no one to see. He fitted an arrow to the string and glanced at the man and
woman. Between her breast and arm the flesh of the man's side showed white. Keen bent
the bow and drew back the arrow to its head. Twice he did so, calmly and for certainty,
and then drove the bone-barbed missile straight home to the white flesh, gleaming yet
more white in the dark-armed, dark-breasted embrace.

THE LAW OF LIFE
Old Koskoosh listened greedily. Though his sight had long since faded, his hearing was
still acute, and the slightest sound penetrated to the glimmering intelligence which yet
abode behind the withered forehead, but which no longer gazed forth upon the things of
the world. Ah! that was Sit-cum-to-ha, shrilly anathematizing the dogs as she cuffed and
beat them into the harnesses. Sit-cum-to-ha was his daughter's daughter, but she was too
busy to waste a thought upon her broken grandfather, sitting alone there in the snow,
forlorn and helpless. Camp must be broken. The long trail waited while the short day
refused to linger. Life called her, and the duties of life, not death. And he was very close
to death now.
The thought made the old man panicky for the moment, and he stretched forth a palsied
hand which wandered tremblingly over the small heap of dry wood beside him.
Reassured that it was indeed there, his hand returned to the shelter of his mangy furs, and
he again fell to listening. The sulky crackling of half-frozen hides told him that the chief's
moose-skin lodge had been struck, and even then was being rammed and jammed into
portable compass. The chief was his son, stalwart and strong, head man of the tribesmen,
and a mighty hunter. As the women toiled with the camp luggage, his voice rose, chiding
them for their slowness. Old Koskoosh strained his ears. It was the last time he would

hear that voice. There went Geehow's lodge! And Tusken's! Seven, eight, nine; only the
shaman's could be still standing. There! They were at work upon it now. He could hear
the shaman grunt as he piled it on the sled. A child whimpered, and a woman soothed it
with soft, crooning gutturals. Little Koo-tee, the old man thought, a fretful child, and not
overstrong. It would die soon, perhaps, and they would burn a hole through the frozen
tundra and pile rocks above to keep the wolverines away. Well, what did it matter? A few
years at best, and as many an empty belly as a full one. And in the end, Death waited,
ever-hungry and hungriest of them all.
What was that? Oh, the men lashing the sleds and drawing tight the thongs. He listened,
who would listen no more. The whip-lashes snarled and bit among the dogs. Hear them
whine! How they hated the work and the trail! They were off! Sled after sled churned
slowly away into the silence. They were gone. They had passed out of his life, and he
faced the last bitter hour alone. No. The snow crunched