Isobel | Page 6

assisted them to drag their
load, and set off across the Barren. The presence of the dead had
always been oppressive to him, but to-night it was otherwise. His
fatigue of the day was gone, and in spite of the thing he was helping to
drag behind him he was filled with a strange elation. He was in the
presence of a woman. Now and then he turned his head to look at her.
He could feel her behind him, and the sound of her low voice when she
spoke to the dogs was like music to him. He wanted to burst forth in the
wild song with which he and Pelliter had kept up their courage in the
little cabin, but he throttled his desire and whistled instead. He
wondered how the woman and the dogs had dragged the sledge. It sank
deep in the soft drift-snow, and taxed his strength. Now and then he
paused to rest, and at last the woman jumped from the sledge and came
to his side.
"I am going to walk," she said. "The load is too heavy."
"The snow is soft," replied MacVeigh. "Come."
He held out his hand to her; and, with the same strange, white look in
her face, the woman gave him her own. She glanced back uneasily
toward the box, and MacVeigh understood. He pressed her fingers a
little tighter and drew her nearer to him. Hand in hand, they resumed
their way across the Barren. MacVeigh said nothing, but his blood was
running like fire through his body. The little hand he held trembled and
started uneasily. Once or twice it tried to draw itself away, and he held
it closer. After that it remained submissively in his own, warm and
thrilling. Looking down, he could see the profile of the woman's face.
A long, shining tress of her hair had freed itself from under her hood,
and the light wind lifted it so that it fell across his arm. Like a thief he
raised it to his lips, while the woman looked straight ahead to where the
timber-line began to show in a thin, black streak. His cheeks burned,
half with shame, half with tumultuous joy. Then he straightened his
shoulders and shook the floating tress from his arm.

Three-quarters of an hour later they came to the first of the timber. He
still held her hand. He was still holding it, with the brilliant starlight
falling upon them, when his chin shot suddenly into the air again, alert
and fighting, and he cried, softly:
"What was that?"
"Nothing," said the woman. "I heard nothing-- unless it was the wind in
the trees."
She drew away from him. The dogs whined and slunk close to the box.
Across the Barren came a low, wailing wind.
"The storm is coming back," said MacVeigh. "It must have been the
wind that I heard."
III
IN HONOR OF THE LIVING
For a few moments after uttering those words Billy stood silent
listening for a sound that was not the low moaning of the wind far out
on the Barren. He was sure that he had heard it-- something very near,
almost at his feet, and yet it was a sound which he could not place or
understand. He looked at the woman. She was gazing steadily at him.
"I hear it now," she said. "It is the wind. It has frightened me. It makes
such terrible sounds at times-- out on the Barren. A little while ago-- I
thought-- I heard-- a child crying--"
Billy saw her clutch a hand at her throat, and there were both terror and
grief in the eyes that never for an instant left his face. He understood.
She was almost ready to give way under the terrible strain of the Barren.
He smiled at her, and spoke in a voice that he might have used to a
little child.
"You are tired, little girl ?"
"Yes-- yes-- I am tired--"
"And hungry and cold?"
"Yes."
"Then we will camp in the timber."
They went on until they came to a growth of spruce so dense that it
formed a shelter from both snow and wind, with a thick carpet of
brown needles under foot. They were shut out from the stars, and in the
darkness MacVeigh began to whistle cheerfully. He unstrapped his
pack and spread out one of his blankets close to the box and wrapped
the other about the woman's shoulders.

"You sit here while I make a fire," he said.
He piled up dry needles over a precious bit of his birchbark and struck
a flame. In the glowing light he found other fuel, and added to the fire
until the crackling blaze leaped as high as his head. The woman's face