Gods Country--And the Woman | Page 4

a glory of unbound hair that rippled to the sand. Black tresses, even velvety as the crow's wing, might have meant Cree or half-breed. But this at which he stared--all that he saw of her--was the brown and gold of the autumnal tintings that had painted pictures for him that day.
Slowly she raised her head, as if something had given her warning of a presence behind, and as she hesitated in that birdlike, listening poise a breath of wind from the little valley stirred her hair in a shimmering veil that caught a hundred fires of the sun. And then, as he crushed back his first impulse to cry out, to speak to her, she rose erect beside the pool, her back still to him, and hidden to the hips in her glorious hair.
Her movement revealed a towel partly spread out on the sand, and a comb, a brush, and a small toilet bag. Philip did not see these. She was turning, slowly, scanning the rocks beyond the valley.
Like a thing carven out of stone he stood, still speechless, still staring, when she faced him.
CHAPTER TWO
A face like that into which Philip looked might have come to him from out of some dream of paradise. It was a girl's face. Eyes of the pure blue of the sky above met his own. Her lips were a little parted and a little laughing. Before he had uttered a word, before he could rise out of the stupidity of his wonder, the change came. A fear that he could not have forgotten if he had lived through a dozen centuries leaped into the lovely eyes. The half-laughing lips grew tense with terror. Quick as the flash of powder there had come into her face a look that was not that of one merely startled. It was fear--horror--a great, gripping thing that for an instant seemed to crush the life from her soul. In another moment it was gone, and she swayed back against the face of the rock, clutching a hand at her breast.
"My God, how I frightened you!" gasped Philip.
"Yes, you frightened me," she said.
Her white throat was bare, and he could see the throb of it as she made a strong effort to speak steadily. Her eyes did not leave him. As he advanced a step he saw that unconsciously she cringed closer to the rock.
"You are not afraid--now?" he asked. "I wouldn't have frightened you for the world. And sooner than hurt you I'd--I'd kill myself. I just stumbled here by accident. And I haven't seen a white woman--for two years. So I stared--stared--and stood there like a fool."
Relief shot into her eyes at his words.
"Two years? What do you mean?"
"I've been up along the rim of h--I mean the Arctic, on a government wild-goose chase," he explained. "And I'm just coming down."
"You're from the North?"
There was an eager emphasis in her question.
"Yes. Straight from Coronation Gulf. I ran ashore to cook a mess of prunes. While the water was boiling I came down here after a bear, and found YOU! My name is Philip Weyman; I haven't even an Indian with me, and there are three things in the world I'd trade that name for just now: One is pie, another is doughnuts, and the third--"
She brushed back her hair, and the fear went from her eyes as she looked at him.
"And the third?" she asked.
"Is the answer to a question," he finished. "How do YOU happen to be here, six hundred miles from anywhere?"
She stepped out from the rock. And now he saw that she was almost as tall as himself, and that she was as slim as a reed and as beautifully poised as the wild narcissus that sways like music to every call of the wind. She had tucked up her sleeves, baring her round white arms close to the shoulders, and as she looked steadily at him before answering his question she flung back the shining masses of her hair and began to braid it. Her fear for him was entirely gone. She was calm. And there was something in the manner of her quiet and soul-deep study of him that held back other words which he might have spoken.
In those few moments she had taken her place in his life. She stood before him like a goddess, tall and slender and unafraid, her head a gold-brown aureole, her face filled with a purity, a beauty, and a STRENGTH that made him look at her speechless, waiting for the sound of her voice. In her look there was neither boldness nor suspicion. Her eyes were clear, deep pools of velvety blue that defied him to lie to her, He felt that under those eyes he could have knelt down upon the sand and emptied