Very far away in the mist of the tamaracks I heard owls faintly halooing, and it is a melancholy sound which ever renders me uneasy.
I was weary to the bones, yet did not desire sleep. A vague presentiment, like a mist on some young peak, seemed to possess my senses, making me feel as lonely as a mountain after the sun has set.
I had never before suffered from solitude, unless missing the beloved dead means that.
I missed them now,--parents who seemed ages long absent,--or was it I, their only son, who tarried here below too long, and beyond a reasonable time?
I was lonely. I looked at the scalps, all curing on their hoops, hanging in a row near the fire. I glanced at Nick. He lay on his blanket, sleeping.... The head of the little Athabasca Sorceress lay heavy on my shoulder; she made no sound of breathing in her quiet sleep. Both her hands were doubled into childish fists, thumbs inside.
Johnny Silver smoked and smoked, his keen, tireless eyes on the Scalp Dancers; Luysnes, also, blinked at them in the ruddy glare, his powerful hands clasping his knees; de Golyer was on guard.
I caught Godfrey's eye, motioned him to relieve Joe, then dropped my head once more in sombre meditation, lonely, restless, weary, and unsatisfied....
And now, again,--as it had been for perhaps a longer period of time than I entirely comprehended,--I seemed to see darkly, and mirrored against darkness, the face of the Scottish girl.... And her yellow hair and dark eyes; ... and that little warning glimmer from which dawned that faint smile of hers....
That I was lonely for lack of her I never dreamed then. I was content to see her face grow vaguely; sweetly take shape from the darkness under my absent gaze;--content to evoke the silent phantom out of the stuff that ghosts are made of--those frail phantoms which haunt the secret recesses of men's minds.
I was asleep when Nick touched me. Thiohero still slept against my shoulder; the Yellow Leaf and the Oneidas still danced and vaunted their prowess, and they had set a post in the soft earth near the shore, and had painted it red; and now all their hatchets were sticking in it, while they trotted tirelessly in their scalping dance, and carved the flame-shot darkness with naked knives.
