"Sam and Sophie go 'way," she said placidly. "No come back Lone Moose long time--maybe no more. Sophie leave sumpin' you. I get."
She crossed the room to a shelf above the serried volumes of Sam Carr's library, lifted the cover of a tin tobacco box and took out a letter. This she gave to Thompson. Then she sat down cross-legged on the wolfskin beside her youngster, looking up at her visitor impassively, her moon face void of expression, except perhaps the mildest trace of curiosity.
Thompson fingered the envelope for a second, scarcely crediting his ears. The letter in his hands conveyed nothing. He did not recognize the writing. He was acutely conscious of a dreadful heartsinking. There was a finality about the Indian woman's statement that chilled him.
"They have gone away?" he said. "Where? When did they go?"
"Long time. Two moon," she replied matter-of-factly. "Dunno where go. Sam say he go--don't know when come back. Leave me house, plenty blanket, plenty grub. Next spring he say he send more grub. That all. Sophie go too."
Thompson stared at her. Perhaps he was not alone in facing something that numbed him.
"Your man go away. Not come back. You sorry? You feel bad?" he asked.
"Sam he good man," she said evenly. "Leave good place for me. I plenty warm, plenty to eat. I no care he go. Sam, pretty soon he get old. I want ketchum man, I ketchum. No feel bad. No."
She shook her head, as if the idea amused her. And Mr. Thompson, perceiving that a potential desertion which moved him to sympathy did not trouble her at all, turned his attention to the letter in his hand. He opened the envelope. There were half a dozen closely written sheets within.
Dear freckle-faced man: there is such a lot I want to say that I don't know where to begin. Perhaps you'll think it queer I should write instead of telling you, but I have found it hard to talk to you, hard to say what I mean in any clear sort of way. Speech is a tricky thing when half of one's mind is dwelling on the person one is trying to talk to and only the other half alive to what one is trying to express. The last time we were together it was hard for me to talk. I knew what I was going to do, and I didn't like to tell you. I wanted to talk and when I tried I blundered. Too much feeling--a sort of inward choking. And the last few days, when I have become accustomed to the idea of going away and familiar with the details of the astonishing change which has taken place in my life, you have been gone. I dare not trust to a casual meeting between here and Pachugan. I do not even know for sure that you have gone to Pachugan, or that you will come back--of course I think you will or I should not write.