for a long time after pierrot left them the willow did not move from where she had seated herself beside baree. it was at last the deepening shadows and a near rumble in the sky that roused her from the fear of the things pierrot had told her. when she looked up, black clouds were massing slowly over the open space above the spruce-tops. darkness was falling. in the whisper of the wind and the dead stillness of the thickening gloom there was the sullen brewing of storm. to-night there would be no glorious sunset. there would be no twilight hour in which to follow the trail, no moon, no stars—and unless pierrot and the factor were already on their way, they would not start in the face of the pitch blackness that would soon shroud the land.
nepeese shivered and rose to her feet. for the first time baree got up, and he stood close at her side. above them a lightning-flash cut the clouds like a knife of fire, followed in an instant by a terrific crash of thunder. baree shrank back as if struck a blow. he would have slunk into the shelter of the brush wall of the wigwam, but there was something about the willow as he looked at her which gave him confidence. the thunder crashed again. but he retreated no farther. his eyes were fixed on nepeese.
she stood straight and slim in that gathering gloom riven by the lightning, her beautiful head thrown back, her lips parted, and her eyes glowing with an almost eager anticipation—a sculptured goddess welcoming with bated breath the onrushing forces of the heavens. perhaps it was because she was born on a night of storm. many times pierrot and the dead princess mother had told her that—how on the night she had come into the world the crash of thunder and the flare of lightning had made the hours an inferno, how the streams had burst over their banks and the stems of ten thousand forest trees had snapped in its fury—and the beat of the deluge on their cabin roof had drowned the sound of her mother’s pain, and of her own first babyish cries.
on that night, it may be, the spirit of storm was born in nepeese. she loved to face it, as she was facing it now. it made her forget all things but the splendid might of nature; her half-wild soul thrilled to the crash and fire of it; often she had reached up her bare arms and laughed with joy as the deluge burst about her. even now she might have stood there in the little open until the rain fell, if a whine from baree had not turned her. as the first big drops struck with the dull thud of leaden bullets about them, she went with him into the balsam shelter.
once before baree had passed through a night of terrible storm—the night he had hidden himself under a root and saw the tree riven by lightning; but now he had company, and the warmth and soft pressure of the willow’s hand on his head and neck filled him with a strange courage. he growled softly at the crashing thunder. he wanted to snap at the lightning-flashes. under her hand nepeese felt the stiffening of his body, and in a moment of uncanny stillness she heard the sharp, uneasy click of his teeth. then the rain fell.
it was not like other rains baree had known. it was an inundation sweeping down out of the blackness of the skies. within five minutes the interior of the balsam shelter was a shower-bath—half an hour of that torrential downpour, and nepeese was soaked to the skin. the water ran in little rivulets down her back and breast; it trickled in tiny streams from her drenched braids and dropped from her long lashes, and the blanket under her was wet as a mop. to baree it was almost as bad as his near-drowning in the stream after his fight with papayuchisew, and he snuggled closer and closer under the sheltering arm of the willow. it seemed an interminable time before the thunder rolled far to the east, and the lightning died away into distant and intermittent flashings. even after that the rain fell for another hour. then it stopped as suddenly as it had begun.
with a laughing gasp nepeese rose to her feet. the water gurgled in her moccasins as she walked out into the open. she paid no attention to baree—and he followed her. across the open in the treetops the last of the storm-clouds were drifting away. a star shone—then another; and the willow stood watching them as they appeared until there were so many she could not count. it was no longer black. a wonderful starlight flooded the open after the inky gloom of the storm.
nepeese looked down and saw baree. he was standing clear and unleashed, with freedom on all sides of him. yet he did not run. he was waiting, wet as a water-rat, with his eyes on her expectantly. nepeese made a movement toward him, and hesitated.
“no, you will not run away, baree. i will leave you free. and now we must have a fire!”
a fire! any one but pierrot might have said that she was crazy. not a stem or twig in the forest that was not dripping! they could hear the trickle of running water all about them.
“a fire,” she said again. “let us hunt for the wuskwi, baree.”
with her wet clothes clinging to her tightly, she was like a slim shadow as she crossed the soggy open and buried herself among the forest trees. baree still followed. she went straight to a birch-tree that she had located that day and began tearing off the loose bark. an armful of this bark she carried close to the wigwam, and on it she heaped load after load of wet wood until she had a great pile. from a bottle in the wigwam she secured a dry match, and at the first touch of its tiny flame the birch-bark flared up like paper soaked in oil. half an hour later the willow’s fire—if there had been no forest walls to hide it—could have been seen at the cabin a mile away. not until it was blazing a dozen feet into the air did she cease putting wood on it. then she drove sticks into the soft ground and over these sticks stretched the blanket out to dry. after that she began to undress.
the rain had cooled the air, and the tonic of it—laden with the breath of the balsam and spruce—set the willow’s blood dancing in her veins. she forgot the discomfort of the deluge. she forgot the factor from lac bain, and what pierrot had told her. after all, she was a bird of the forests, wild with the sweet wildness of the flowers under her bare feet—and in the glory of these wonderful hours that had followed the storm she could see nothing and think of nothing that might harm her. she danced about baree, tossing her sea of hair about her, her naked body shimmering in and out of it, her eyes aglow, her lips laughing in her unreasoning happiness—the happiness of being alive, of drinking into her lungs the perfumed air of the forest, of seeing the stars and the wonderful sky above her. she stopped before baree, and cried laughingly at him, holding out her arms:
“ahe, baree—if you could only throw off your skin as easily as i have thrown off my clothes!”
she drew a deep breath, and her eyes shone with a sudden inspiration. slowly her mouth formed into a round red o, and leaning still nearer to baree, she whispered:
“it will be deep—and sweet to-night. ninga—yes—we will go!”
she called to him softly as she slipped on her wet moccasins and followed the creek into the forest. a hundred yards from the open she came to the edge of a pool. it was deep and full to-night, three times as big as it had been before the storm. she could hear the gurgle and inrush of water. on its ruffled surface the stars shone. for a moment or two she stood poised on a rock with the cool depths half a dozen feet below her. then she flung back her hair and shot like a slim white arrow through the starlight.
baree saw her go. he heard the plunge of her body. for half an hour he lay flat and still, close to the edge of the pool, and watched her. sometimes she was just under him, floating silently, her hair forming a cloud darker than the water about her; again she was cutting over the surface almost as swiftly as the otters he had seen—and then with a sudden plunge she would disappear, and baree’s heart would quicken its pulse as he waited for her. once she was gone a long time. he whined. he knew she was not like the beaver and the otter, and he was filled with an immense relief when she came up.
so their first night passed—storm, the cool, deep pool, the big fire; and later, when the willow’s clothes and the blanket had dried, a few hours’ sleep. at dawn they returned to the cabin. it was a cautious approach. there was no smoke coming from the chimney. the door was closed. pierrot and bush mctaggart were gone.
