Snowdrift Part 20

Brent returned the cap to his head. "I'm glad I didn't know the other day, how expert you are with your rifle," he laughed, "Or I wouldn't have stayed as long as I did."

The girl regarded him gravely: "You are not angry with me?" she asked.

"Why, no, of course not! Why should I be angry with you? I knew that there was no reason why you should shoot me. And I knew that things would straighten out, somehow. I thought you had mistaken me for someone else, and----"

"I thought you were a hooch-runner," interrupted the girl. "I did not think any white man who is not a hooch-runner, or a policeman, would be way over here, and I could see that you were not in the Mounted."

"No," answered Brent, "I am not in the Mounted, but, how do you know that I am not a hooch-runner?"

"Because, three of our band went to your cabin that very night to buy hooch, and they did not get it. And the next night they went again and took more fox skins, and again they came away empty handed."

"You sent them then?"

"No, no! But, I knew that they would think the same as I did, that you wanted to trade them hooch, so I followed them when they slipped out of the village. Both nights I followed, and I pressed my ear close to the door, so that I heard all you said."

Brent smiled: "I have some recollection of asking one of those wooden images something about a certain warlike young lady----"

The girl interrupted him with a laugh: "Yes, I heard that, and I heard you swear at the hooch traders, and tell the Indians there was no hooch in the cabin, and I was glad."

The man's eyes sought hers in a swift glance: "Why--why were you glad?"

he asked.

"Because I--because you--because I didn't want to kill you. And I would have killed you if you had sold them hooch."

"You wouldn't--really----"

"Yes, I would!" cried the girl, and Brent saw that the dark eyes flashed, "I would kill a hooch-runner as I would a wolf. They are wolves. They're worse than wolves! Wolves kill for meat, but they kill for money. They take the fur that would put bread in the mouths of the women and the little babies, and they make the men drunken and no good.

There used to be thirty of us in the band, and now there are only sixteen. Two of the men deserted their families since we came here, because they would not stay where there was no hooch." The girl ceased speaking and glanced quickly upward: "Snow!" she cried, "It is starting to snow, and darkness will soon be here. I must draw these caribou, before they freeze." She drew the knife from her belt and stepped to the carca.s.s of the bull. But Brent took it from her hand.

"Let me do it," he said, eagerly, "You stand there and tell me how, and we'll have it done in no time."

"Tell you how!" exclaimed the girl, "What do you mean?" Brent laughed: "I'm afraid I'm still an awful _chechako_ about some things. I can shoot them, all right, but there has always been someone to do the drawing, and skinning, and cutting up. But, I'll learn quickly. Where do I begin?"

Under the minute directions of the girl Brent soon had the big bull drawn. The two smaller animals were easier and when the job was finished he glanced apprehensively at the thickening storm. "We had better go now," he said. "Do you know how far it is to your camp?"

"Nine or ten miles, I think," answered the girl, "We have only been here since fall and this is the first time I have hunted in this direction.

But, first we must draw your caribou. If they freeze they cannot be drawn and then they will not be fit for food."

"But, the snow," objected Brent. "It is coming down faster all the time."

"The snow won't bother us. There is no wind. Hurry, we must finish the others before dark."

"But, the wind might spring up at any moment, and if it does we will have a regular blizzard."

"Then we can camp," answered the girl, and before the astounded man could reply, she had led off at a brisk pace in the direction of the other caribou.

The early darkness was already beginning to make itself felt and Brent drove to his task with a will, and to such good purpose that the girl nodded hearty approval. "You did learn quickly," she smiled, "I could not have done it any better nor quicker, myself."

"Thank you," he laughed, "And that is a real compliment, for by the way you can handle a rifle, and cover ground on snowshoes, I know you are _skook.u.m tillic.u.m_."

"Yes," admitted the girl, "I'm _skook.u.m tillic.u.m_. But, I ought to be. I was born in the North and I have lived in the woods and in the barrens, and upon rivers, all my life."

Brent was about to reply when each glanced for a moment into the other's face, and then both stared into the North. From out of the darkness came a sullen roar, low, and m.u.f.fled, and mighty, like the roar of surf on the sh.o.r.e of a distant sea.

"It is the wind!" cried the girl, "Quick, take a shoulder of meat! We must find shelter and camp."

"I can't cut a leg bone with this knife!"

"There are no bones! It is like this." She s.n.a.t.c.hed the knife from Brent's hand and with a few deft slashes severed a shoulder from the yearling caribou. "Come, quick," she urged, and led the way toward a dark blotch that showed in the scraggling timber a few hundred yards away: "When the storm strikes, we shall not be able to see," she flung over her shoulder, "We must make that thicket of spruce--or we're bushed."

Louder and louder sounded the roar of the approaching wind. Brent enc.u.mbered with his rifle and the shoulder of meat, found it hard to keep up with the girl whose snowshoes fairly flew over the snow. They gained the thicket a few moments before the storm struck. The girl paused before a thick spruce, that had been broken off and lay with its trunk caught across the upstanding b.u.t.t, some four feet from the ground.

Jerking the ax from its sheath she set to work lopping branches from the dead tree.

"Break some live branches for the roof of our shelter!" she commanded.

"This stuff will do for firewood, and in a minute you can take the ax and I will build the wikiup." The words were s.n.a.t.c.hed from her lips by the roar of the storm. Full upon them, now, it bent and swayed the thick spruces as if to snap them at the roots. Brent gasped for breath in the first rush of it and the next moment was coughing the flinty dry snow-powder from his lungs. No longer were there snow-flakes in the air--the air itself was snow--snow that seared and stung as it bit into lips and nostrils, that sifted into the collars of _capote_ and mackinaw, and seized neck and throat in a deadly chill. Back and forth Brent stumbled bearing limbs which he tore from the trunks of trees, and as he laid them at her feet the girl deftly arranged them. The ax made the work easier, and at the end of a half-hour the girl shouted in his ear that there were enough branches. Removing their rackets, they stood them upright in the snow, and stooping, the girl motioned him to follow as she crawled through a low opening in what appeared to be a mountain of spruce boughs. To his surprise, Brent found that inside the wikiup he could breathe freely. The fine powdered snow, collecting upon the close-lying needles had effectively sealed the roof and walls.

For another half hour, the two worked in the intense blackness of the interior with hands and feet pus.h.i.+ng the snow out through the opening, and when the task was finished they spread a thick floor of the small branches that the girl had piled along one side. Only at the opening there were no branches, and there upon the ground the girl proceeded to build a tiny fire. "We must be careful," she cautioned, "and only build a small fire, or our house will burn down." As she talked she opened a light packsack that Brent had noticed upon her shoulders, and drew from its interior a rabbit robe which she spread upon the boughs. Then from the pack she produced a small stew pan and a little package of tea. She filled the pan with snow, and smiled up into Brent's face: "And, now, at last, we are snug and comfortable for the night. We can live here for days if necessary. The caribou are not far away, and we have plenty of tea."

"You are a wonder," breathed Brent, meeting squarely the laughing gaze of the dark eyes, "Do you know that if it had not been for you, I would have been--would never have weathered this storm?"

"You were not born in the bush," she reminded, as she added more snow to the pan. "I do not even know your name," she said, gravely, "And yet I feel--" she paused, and Brent, his voice raised hardly above a whisper, asked eagerly:

"Yes, you feel--how do you feel?"

"I feel as though--as though I had known you always--as though you were my friend."

"Yes," he answered, and it was with an effort he kept the emotion from his voice, "We have known each other always, and I am your friend. My name is Carter Brent. And now, tell me something about yourself. Who are you? And why did you tell me you were an Indian?"

"I am an Indian," she replied, quickly, "That is, I am a half-breed. My father was a white man."

"And what is your name?"

"Snowdrift."

"Snowdrift!" he cried, "what an odd name! Is it your last name or your first?"

"Why, it is the only name I have, and I never had any other."

"But your father--what was your father's name?"

There was a long moment of silence while the girl threw more snow into the pan, and added wood to the fire. Then her words came slowly, and Brent detected a peculiar note in her voice. He wondered whether it was bitterness, or pain: "My father is dead," she answered, "I do not know his name. Why is Snowdrift an odd name?"

"I think it a beautiful name!" cried Brent.

"Do you--really?" The dark eyes were regarding him with a look in which happiness seemed to be blended with fear lest he were mocking her.

"Indeed I do! I love it. And now tell me more--of your life--of your education."