“He ain’t crazy enough to—marry her?” Mike went on contemptuously. “No. He’s no fool kid.”
A deep flush mounted to the veteran’s temples. His deepset eyes sparkled as he surveyed the other through the smoke of the fire.
“You best ask Bill the things you want to know,” he said coldly. “It don’t matter what you think. It don’t matter what any darn fool thinks. Bill’s mostly spent his life playin’ the game as he sees it. An’ I guess he’ll go right on doin’ the same. And the game he plays is a right game. An’ he’s as ready to hand it out to a hooch-soused no-account, as he is to a gal with a dandy pair of blue eyes.”
It had been a quiet, almost subdued evening at the homestead. Somehow Bill Wilder’s manner had been graver than was its wont, and these simple folk, who, since his re-discovery of Marty Le Gros’ gold “strike,” had so quickly come to regard him as something in the nature of the arbiter of their destinies, had been clearly affected by his change of manner.
He had shared their supper, and listened to Clarence’s story of his search for Red Mike. He had found it easier to listen than to talk. Hesther, too, had spent her time in listening, while the children chattered all unconscious of the real mood of their elders.
For the Kid it was a time of quiet happiness, marred only by the thought that with the first streak of brief daylight on the morrow this man would be speeding on his race with the season to ensure her own, and the good fortunes of all those she loved.
The girl looked forward to the coming months of winter clarkness without any glimmer of that happy, contented philosophy which had always been hers. Looking ahead the whole prospect seemed so dark and empty. The days since Bill’s coming to the Caribou had been so overflowing, so thrilling with happy events and delirious joy that the contrasting prospect was only the more deplorably void. And with all the untamed spirit in her she rebelled at the coming parting.
Yet she understood the necessity. She realised the enormous stake he was playing for on their behalf, and so she was determined that no act or word of hers should hinder him. There had been moments when the impulse to plead permission to accompany him was almost irresistible. It filled her heart with delighted dreams of displaying, for his appreciation, her skill and sturdy nerve on the winter trail. She felt that for all her sex she could easily accept more than her due share of the labour, and could increase his comfort a hundredfold. But in sober moments she knew it could not be. If nothing else the woman instinct in her forbade it.