a weary journey beyond the last scrub timber and straggling copses, into the heart of the barrens where the niggard north is supposed to deny the earth, are to be found great sweeps of forests and stretches of smiling land. but this the world is just beginning to know. the world's explorers have known it, from time to time, but hitherto they have never returned to tell the world.
the barrens—well, they are the barrens, the bad lands of the arctic, the deserts of the circle, the bleak and bitter home of the musk-ox and the lean plains wolf. so avery van brunt found them, treeless and cheerless, sparsely clothed with moss and lichens, and altogether uninviting. at least so he found them till he penetrated to the white blank spaces on the map, and came upon undreamed-of rich spruce forests and unrecorded eskimo tribes. it had been his intention, (and his bid for fame), to break up these white blank spaces and diversify them with the black markings of mountain-chains, sinks and basins, and sinuous river courses; and it was with added delight that he came to speculate upon the possibilities of timber belts and native villages.
avery van brunt, or, in full distinction, professor a. van brunt of the geological survey, was second in command of the expedition, and first in command of the sub-expedition which he had led on a side tour of some half a thousand miles up one of the branches of the thelon and which he was now leading into one of his unrecorded villages. at his back plodded eight men, two of them french-canadian voyageurs, and the remainder strapping crees from manitoba-way. he, alone, was full-blooded saxon, and his blood was pounding fiercely through his veins to the traditions of his race. clive and hastings, drake and raleigh, hengest and horsa, walked with him. first of all men of his breed was he to enter this lone northland village, and at the thought an exultancy came upon him, an exaltation, and his followers noted that his leg-weariness fell from him and that he insensibly quickened the pace.
the village emptied itself, and a motley crowd trooped out to meet him, men in the forefront, with bows and spears clutched menacingly, and women and children faltering timidly in the rear. van brunt lifted his right arm and made the universal peace sign, a sign which all peoples know, and the villagers answered in peace. but to his chagrin, a skin-clad man ran forward and thrust out his hand with a familiar "hello." he was a bearded man, with cheeks and brow bronzed to copper-brown, and in him van brunt knew his kind.
"who are you?" he asked, gripping the extended hand. "andrée?"
"who's andrée?" the man asked back.
van brunt looked at him more sharply. "by george, you've been here some time."
"five years," the man answered, a dim flicker of pride in his eyes. "but come on, let's talk."
"let them camp alongside of me," he answered van brunt's glance at his party. "old tantlatch will take care of them. come on."
he swung off in a long stride, van brunt following at his heels through the village. in irregular fashion, wherever the ground favored, the lodges of moose hide were pitched. van brunt ran his practised eye over them and calculated.
"two hundred, not counting the young ones," he summed up.
the man nodded. "pretty close to it. but here's where i live, out of the thick of it, you know—more privacy and all that. sit down. i'll eat with you when your men get something cooked up. i've forgotten what tea tastes like.... five years and never a taste or smell.... any tobacco?... ah, thanks, and a pipe? good. now for a fire-stick and we'll see if the weed has lost its cunning."
he scratched the match with the painstaking care of the woodsman, cherished its young flame as though there were never another in all the world, and drew in the first mouthful of smoke. this he retained meditatively for a time, and blew out through his pursed lips slowly and caressingly. then his face seemed to soften as he leaned back, and a soft blur to film his eyes. he sighed heavily, happily, with immeasurable content, and then said suddenly:
"god! but that tastes good!"
van brunt nodded sympathetically. "five years, you say?"
"five years." the man sighed again. "and you, i presume, wish to know about it, being naturally curious, and this a sufficiently strange situation, and all that. but it's not much. i came in from edmonton after musk-ox, and like pike and the rest of them, had my mischances, only i lost my party and outfit. starvation, hardship, the regular tale, you know, sole survivor and all that, till i crawled into tantlatch's, here, on hand and knee."
"five years," van brunt murmured retrospectively, as though turning things over in his mind.
"five years on february last. i crossed the great slave early in may—"
"and you are ... fairfax?" van brunt interjected.
the man nodded.
"let me see ... john, i think it is, john fairfax."
"how did you know?" fairfax queried lazily, half-absorbed in curling smoke-spirals upward in the quiet air.
"the papers were full of it at the time. prevanche—"
"prevanche!" fairfax sat up, suddenly alert. "he was lost in the smoke mountains."
"yes, but he pulled through and came out."
fairfax settled back again and resumed his smoke-spirals. "i am glad to hear it," he remarked reflectively. "prevanche was a bully fellow if he did have ideas about head-straps, the beggar. and he pulled through? well, i'm glad."
five years ... the phrase drifted recurrently through van brunt's thought, and somehow the face of emily southwaithe seemed to rise up and take form before him. five years ... a wedge of wild-fowl honked low overhead and at sight of the encampment veered swiftly to the north into the smouldering sun. van brunt could not follow them. he pulled out his watch. it was an hour past midnight. the northward clouds flushed bloodily, and rays of sombre-red shot southward, firing the gloomy woods with a lurid radiance. the air was in breathless calm, not a needle quivered, and the least sounds of the camp were distinct and clear as trumpet calls. the crees and voyageurs felt the spirit of it and mumbled in dreamy undertones, and the cook unconsciously subdued the clatter of pot and pan. somewhere a child was crying, and from the depths of the forest, like a silver thread, rose a woman's voice in mournful chant: "o-o-o-o-o-o-a-haa-ha-a-ha-aa-a-a, o-o-o-o-o-o-a-ha-a-ha-a."
van brunt shivered and rubbed the backs of his hands briskly.
"and they gave me up for dead?" his companion asked slowly.
"well, you never came back, so your friends—"
"promptly forgot." fairfax laughed harshly, defiantly.
"why didn't you come out?"
"partly disinclination, i suppose, and partly because of circumstances over which i had no control. you see, tantlatch, here, was down with a broken leg when i made his acquaintance,—a nasty fracture,—and i set it for him and got him into shape. i stayed some time, getting my strength back. i was the first white man he had seen, and of course i seemed very wise and showed his people no end of things. coached them up in military tactics, among other things, so that they conquered the four other tribal villages, (which you have not yet seen), and came to rule the land. and they naturally grew to think a good deal of me, so much so that when i was ready to go they wouldn't hear of it. were most hospitable, in fact. put a couple of guards over me and watched me day and night. and then tantlatch offered me inducements,—in a sense, inducements,—so to say, and as it didn't matter much one way or the other, i reconciled myself to remaining."
"i knew your brother at freiburg. i am van brunt."
fairfax reached forward impulsively and shook his hand. "you were billy's friend, eh? poor billy! he spoke of you often."
"rum meeting place, though," he added, casting an embracing glance over the primordial landscape and listening for a moment to the woman's mournful notes. "her man was clawed by a bear, and she's taking it hard."
"beastly life!" van brunt grimaced his disgust. "i suppose, after five years of it, civilization will be sweet? what do you say?"
fairfax's face took on a stolid expression. "oh, i don't know. at least they're honest folk and live according to their lights. and then they are amazingly simple. no complexity about them, no thousand and one subtle ramifications to every single emotion they experience. they love, fear, hate, are angered, or made happy, in common, ordinary, and unmistakable terms. it may be a beastly life, but at least it is easy to live. no philandering, no dallying. if a woman likes you, she'll not be backward in telling you so. if she hates you, she'll tell you so, and then, if you feel inclined, you can beat her, but the thing is, she knows precisely what you mean, and you know precisely what she means. no mistakes, no misunderstandings. it has its charm, after civilization's fitful fever. comprehend?"
"no, it's a pretty good life," he continued, after a pause; "good enough for me, and i intend to stay with it."
van brunt lowered his head in a musing manner, and an imperceptible smile played on his mouth. no philandering, no dallying, no misunderstanding. fairfax also was taking it hard, he thought, just because emily southwaithe had been mistakenly clawed by a bear. and not a bad sort of a bear, either, was carlton southwaithe.
"but you are coming along with me," van brunt said deliberately.
"no, i'm not."
"yes, you are."
"life's too easy here, i tell you." fairfax spoke with decision. "i understand everything, and i am understood. summer and winter alternate like the sun flashing through the palings of a fence, the seasons are a blur of light and shade, and time slips by, and life slips by, and then ... a wailing in the forest, and the dark. listen!"
he held up his hand, and the silver thread of the woman's sorrow rose through the silence and the calm. fairfax joined in softly.
"o-o-o-o-o-o-a-haa-ha-a-ha-aa-a-a, o-o-o-o-o-o-a-ha-a-ha-a," he sang. "can't you hear it? can't you see it? the women mourning? the funeral chant? my hair white-locked and patriarchal? my skins wrapped in rude splendor about me? my hunting-spear by my side? and who shall say it is not well?"
van brunt looked at him coolly. "fairfax, you are a damned fool. five years of this is enough to knock any man, and you are in an unhealthy, morbid condition. further, carlton southwaithe is dead."
van brunt filled his pipe and lighted it, the while watching slyly and with almost professional interest. fairfax's eyes flashed on the instant, his fists clenched, he half rose up, then his muscles relaxed and he seemed to brood. michael, the cook, signalled that the meal was ready, but van brunt motioned back to delay. the silence hung heavy, and he fell to analyzing the forest scents, the odors of mould and rotting vegetation, the resiny smells of pine cones and needles, the aromatic savors of many camp-smokes. twice fairfax looked up, but said nothing, and then:
"and ... emily ...?"
"three years a widow; still a widow."
another long silence settled down, to be broken by fairfax finally with a naïve smile. "i guess you're right, van brunt. i'll go along."
"i knew you would." van brunt laid his hand on fairfax's shoulder. "of course, one cannot know, but i imagine—for one in her position—she has had offers—"
"when do you start?" fairfax interrupted.
"after the men have had some sleep. which reminds me, michael is getting angry, so come and eat."
after supper, when the crees and voyageurs had rolled into their blankets, snoring, the two men lingered by the dying fire. there was much to talk about,—wars and politics and explorations, the doings of men and the happening of things, mutual friends, marriages, deaths,—five years of history for which fairfax clamored.
"so the spanish fleet was bottled up in santiago," van brunt was saying, when a young woman stepped lightly before him and stood by fairfax's side. she looked swiftly into his face, then turned a troubled gaze upon van brunt.
"chief tantlatch's daughter, sort of princess," fairfax explained, with an honest flush. "one of the inducements, in short, to make me stay. thom, this is van brunt, friend of mine."
van brunt held out his hand, but the woman maintained a rigid repose quite in keeping with her general appearance. not a line of her face softened, not a feature unbent. she looked him straight in the eyes, her own piercing, questioning, searching.
"precious lot she understands," fairfax laughed. "her first introduction, you know. but as you were saying, with the spanish fleet bottled up in santiago?"
thom crouched down by her husband's side, motionless as a bronze statue, only her eyes flashing from face to face in ceaseless search. and avery van brunt, as he talked on and on, felt a nervousness under the dumb gaze. in the midst of his most graphic battle descriptions, he would become suddenly conscious of the black eyes burning into him, and would stumble and flounder till he could catch the gait and go again. fairfax, hands clasped round knees, pipe out, absorbed, spurred him on when he lagged, and repictured the world he thought he had forgotten.
one hour passed, and two, and fairfax rose reluctantly to his feet. "and cronje was cornered, eh? well, just wait a moment till i run over to tantlatch. he'll be expecting you, and i'll arrange for you to see him after breakfast. that will be all right, won't it?"
he went off between the pines, and van brunt found himself staring into thom's warm eyes. five years, he mused, and she can't be more than twenty now. a most remarkable creature. being eskimo, she should have a little flat excuse for a nose, and lo, it is neither broad nor flat, but aquiline, with nostrils delicately and sensitively formed as any fine lady's of a whiter breed—the indian strain somewhere, be assured, avery van brunt. and, avery van brunt, don't be nervous, she won't eat you; she's only a woman, and not a bad-looking one at that. oriental rather than aborigine. eyes large and fairly wide apart, with just the faintest hint of mongol obliquity. thom, you're an anomaly. you're out of place here among these eskimos, even if your father is one. where did your mother come from? or your grandmother? and thom, my dear, you're a beauty, a frigid, frozen little beauty with alaskan lava in your blood, and please don't look at me that way.
he laughed and stood up. her insistent stare disconcerted him. a dog was prowling among the grub-sacks. he would drive it away and place them into safety against fairfax's return. but thom stretched out a detaining hand and stood up, facing him.
"you?" she said, in the arctic tongue which differs little from greenland to point barrow. "you?"
and the swift expression of her face demanded all for which "you" stood, his reason for existence, his presence there, his relation to her husband—everything.
"brother," he answered in the same tongue, with a sweeping gesture to the south. "brothers we be, your man and i."
she shook her head. "it is not good that you be here."
"after one sleep i go."
"and my man?" she demanded, with tremulous eagerness.
van brunt shrugged his shoulders. he was aware of a certain secret shame, of an impersonal sort of shame, and an anger against fairfax. and he felt the warm blood in his face as he regarded the young savage. she was just a woman. that was all—a woman. the whole sordid story over again, over and over again, as old as eve and young as the last new love-light.
"my man! my man! my man!" she was reiterating vehemently, her face passionately dark, and the ruthless tenderness of the eternal woman, the mate-woman, looking out at him from her eyes.
"thom," he said gravely, in english, "you were born in the northland forest, and you have eaten fish and meat, and fought with frost and famine, and lived simply all the days of your life. and there are many things, indeed not simple, which you do not know and cannot come to understand. you do not know what it is to long for the fleshpots afar, you cannot understand what it is to yearn for a fair woman's face. and the woman is fair, thom, the woman is nobly fair. you have been woman to this man, and you have been your all, but your all is very little, very simple. too little and too simple, and he is an alien man. him you have never known, you can never know. it is so ordained. you held him in your arms, but you never held his heart, this man with his blurring seasons and his dreams of a barbaric end. dreams and dream-dust, that is what he has been to you. you clutched at form and gripped shadow, gave yourself to a man and bedded with the wraith of a man. in such manner, of old, did the daughters of men whom the gods found fair. and, thom, thom, i should not like to be john fairfax in the night-watches of the years to come, in the night-watches, when his eyes shall see, not the sun-gloried hair of the woman by his side, but the dark tresses of a mate forsaken in the forests of the north."
though she did not understand, she had listened with intense attention, as though life hung on his speech. but she caught at her husband's name and cried out in eskimo:—
"yes! yes! fairfax! my man!"
"poor little fool, how could he be your man?"
but she could not understand his english tongue, and deemed that she was being trifled with. the dumb, insensate anger of the mate-woman flamed in her face, and it almost seemed to the man as though she crouched panther-like for the spring.
he cursed softly to himself and watched the fire fade from her face and the soft luminous glow of the appealing woman spring up, of the appealing woman who foregoes strength and panoplies herself wisely in her weakness.
"he is my man," she said gently. "never have i known other. it cannot be that i should ever know other. nor can it be that he should go from me."
"who has said he shall go from thee?" he demanded sharply, half in exasperation, half in impotence.
"it is for thee to say he shall not go from me," she answered softly, a half-sob in her throat.
van brunt kicked the embers of the fire savagely and sat down.
"it is for thee to say. he is my man. before all women he is my man. thou art big, thou art strong, and behold, i am very weak. see, i am at thy feet. it is for thee to deal with me. it is for thee."
"get up!" he jerked her roughly erect and stood up himself. "thou art a woman. wherefore the dirt is no place for thee, nor the feet of any man."
"he is my man."
"then jesus forgive all men!" van brunt cried out passionately.
"he is my man," she repeated monotonously, beseechingly.
"he is my brother," he answered.
"my father is chief tantlatch. he is a power over five villages. i will see that the five villages be searched for thy choice of all maidens, that thou mayest stay here by thy brother, and dwell in comfort."
"after one sleep i go."
"and my man?"
"thy man comes now. behold!"
from among the gloomy spruces came the light carolling of fairfax's voice.
as the day is quenched by a sea of fog, so his song smote the light out of her face. "it is the tongue of his own people," she said; "the tongue of his own people."
she turned, with the free movement of a lithe young animal, and made off into the forest.
"it's all fixed," fairfax called as he came up. "his regal highness will receive you after breakfast."
"have you told him?" van brunt asked.
"no. nor shall i tell him till we're ready to pull out."
van brunt looked with moody affection over the sleeping forms of his men.
"i shall be glad when we are a hundred leagues upon our way," he said.
thom raised the skin-flap of her father's lodge. two men sat with him, and the three looked at her with swift interest. but her face betokened nothing as she entered and took seat quietly, without speech. tantlatch drummed with his knuckles on a spear-heft across his knees, and gazed idly along the path of a sun-ray which pierced a lacing-hole and flung a glittering track across the murky atmosphere of the lodge. to his right, at his shoulder, crouched chugungatte, the shaman. both were old men, and the weariness of many years brooded in their eyes. but opposite them sat keen, a young man and chief favorite in the tribe. he was quick and alert of movement, and his black eyes flashed from face to face in ceaseless scrutiny and challenge.
silence reigned in the place. now and again camp noises penetrated, and from the distance, faint and far, like the shadows of voices, came the wrangling of boys in thin shrill tones. a dog thrust his head into the entrance and blinked wolfishly at them for a space, the slaver dripping from his ivory-white fangs. after a time he growled tentatively, and then, awed by the immobility of the human figures, lowered his head and grovelled away backward. tantlatch glanced apathetically at his daughter.
"and thy man, how is it with him and thee?"
"he sings strange songs," thom made answer, "and there is a new look on his face."
"so? he hath spoken?"
"nay, but there is a new look on his face, a new light in his eyes, and with the new-comer he sits by the fire, and they talk and talk, and the talk is without end."
chugungatte whispered in his master's ear, and keen leaned forward from his hips.
"there be something calling him from afar," she went on, "and he seems to sit and listen, and to answer, singing, in his own people's tongue."
again chugungatte whispered and keen leaned forward, and thom held her speech till her father nodded his head that she might proceed.
"it be known to thee, o tantlatch, that the wild goose and the swan and the little ringed duck be born here in the low-lying lands. it be known that they go away before the face of the frost to unknown places. and it be known, likewise, that always do they return when the sun is in the land and the waterways are free. always do they return to where they were born, that new life may go forth. the land calls to them and they come. and now there is another land that calls, and it is calling to my man,—the land where he was born,—and he hath it in mind to answer the call. yet is he my man. before all women is he my man."
"is it well, tantlatch? is it well?" chugungatte demanded, with the hint of menace in his voice.
"ay, it is well!" keen cried boldly. "the land calls to its children, and all lands call their children home again. as the wild goose and the swan and the little ringed duck are called, so is called this stranger man who has lingered with us and who now must go. also there be the call of kind. the goose mates with the goose, nor does the swan mate with the little ringed duck. it is not well that the swan should mate with the little ringed duck. nor is it well that stranger men should mate with the women of our villages. wherefore i say the man should go, to his own kind, in his own land."
"he is my own man," thom answered, "and he is a great man."
"ay, he is a great man." chugungatte lifted his head with a faint recrudescence of youthful vigor. "he is a great man, and he put strength in thy arm, o tantlatch, and gave thee power, and made thy name to be feared in the land, to be feared and to be respected. he is very wise, and there be much profit in his wisdom. to him are we beholden for many things,—for the cunning in war and the secrets of the defence of a village and a rush in the forest, for the discussion in council and the undoing of enemies by word of mouth and the hard-sworn promise, for the gathering of game and the making of traps and the preserving of food, for the curing of sickness and mending of hurts of trail and fight. thou, tantlatch, wert a lame old man this day, were it not that the stranger man came into our midst and attended on thee. and ever, when in doubt on strange questions, have we gone to him, that out of his wisdom he might make things clear, and ever has he made things clear. and there be questions yet to arise, and needs upon his wisdom yet to come, and we cannot bear to let him go. it is not well that we should let him go."
tantlatch continued to drum on the spear-haft, and gave no sign that he had heard. thom studied his face in vain, and chugungatte seemed to shrink together and droop down as the weight of years descended upon him again.
"no man makes my kill." keen smote his breast a valorous blow. "i make my own kill. i am glad to live when i make my own kill. when i creep through the snow upon the great moose, i am glad. and when i draw the bow, so, with my full strength, and drive the arrow fierce and swift and to the heart, i am glad. and the meat of no man's kill tastes as sweet as the meat of my kill. i am glad to live, glad in my own cunning and strength, glad that i am a doer of things, a doer of things for myself. of what other reason to live than that? why should i live if i delight not in myself and the things i do? and it is because i delight and am glad that i go forth to hunt and fish, and it is because i go forth to hunt and fish that i grow cunning and strong. the man who stays in the lodge by the fire grows not cunning and strong. he is not made happy in the eating of my kill, nor is living to him a delight. he does not live. and so i say it is well this stranger man should go. his wisdom does not make us wise. if he be cunning, there is no need that we be cunning. if need arise, we go to him for his cunning. we eat the meat of his kill, and it tastes unsweet. we merit by his strength, and in it there is no delight. we do not live when he does our living for us. we grow fat and like women, and we are afraid to work, and we forget how to do things for ourselves. let the man go, o tantlatch, that we may be men! i am keen, a man, and i make my own kill!"
tantlatch turned a gaze upon him in which seemed the vacancy of eternity. keen waited the decision expectantly; but the lips did not move, and the old chief turned toward his daughter.
"that which be given cannot be taken away," she burst forth. "i was but a girl when this stranger man, who is my man, came among us. and i knew not men, or the ways of men, and my heart was in the play of girls, when thou, tantlatch, thou and none other, didst call me to thee and press me into the arms of the stranger man. thou and none other, tantlatch; and as thou didst give me to the man, so didst thou give the man to me. he is my man. in my arms has he slept, and from my arms he cannot be taken."
"it were well, o tantlatch," keen followed quickly, with a significant glance at thom, "it were well to remember that that which be given cannot be taken away."
chugungatte straightened up. "out of thy youth, keen, come the words of thy mouth. as for ourselves, o tantlatch, we be old men and we understand. we, too, have looked into the eyes of women and felt our blood go hot with strange desires. but the years have chilled us, and we have learned the wisdom of the council, the shrewdness of the cool head and hand, and we know that the warm heart be over-warm and prone to rashness. we know that keen found favor in thy eyes. we know that thom was promised him in the old days when she was yet a child. and we know that the new days came, and the stranger man, and that out of our wisdom and desire for welfare was thom lost to keen and the promise broken."
the old shaman paused, and looked directly at the young man.
"and be it known that i, chugungatte, did advise that the promise be broken."
"nor have i taken other woman to my bed," keen broke in. "and i have builded my own fire, and cooked my own food, and ground my teeth in my loneliness."
chugungatte waved his hand that he had not finished. "i am an old man and i speak from understanding. it be good to be strong and grasp for power. it be better to forego power that good come out of it. in the old days i sat at thy shoulder, tantlatch, and my voice was heard over all in the council, and my advice taken in affairs of moment. and i was strong and held power. under tantlatch i was the greatest man. then came the stranger man, and i saw that he was cunning and wise and great. and in that he was wiser and greater than i, it was plain that greater profit should arise from him than from me. and i had thy ear, tantlatch, and thou didst listen to my words, and the stranger man was given power and place and thy daughter, thom. and the tribe prospered under the new laws in the new days, and so shall it continue to prosper with the stranger man in our midst. we be old men, we two, o tantlatch, thou and i, and this be an affair of head, not heart. hear my words, tantlatch! hear my words! the man remains!"
there was a long silence. the old chief pondered with the massive certitude of god, and chugungatte seemed to wrap himself in the mists of a great antiquity. keen looked with yearning upon the woman, and she, unnoting, held her eyes steadfastly upon her father's face. the wolf-dog shoved the flap aside again, and plucking courage at the quiet, wormed forward on his belly. he sniffed curiously at thom's listless hand, cocked ears challengingly at chugungatte, and hunched down upon his haunches before tantlatch. the spear rattled to the ground, and the dog, with a frightened yell, sprang sideways, snapping in mid-air, and on the second leap cleared the entrance.
tantlatch looked from face to face, pondering each one long and carefully. then he raised his head, with rude royalty, and gave judgment in cold and even tones: "the man remains. let the hunters be called together. send a runner to the next village with word to bring on the fighting men. i shall not see the new-comer. do thou, chugungatte, have talk with him. tell him he may go at once, if he would go in peace. and if fight there be, kill, kill, kill, to the last man; but let my word go forth that no harm befall our man,—the man whom my daughter hath wedded. it is well."
chugungatte rose and tottered out; thom followed; but as keen stooped to the entrance the voice of tantlatch stopped him.
"keen, it were well to hearken to my word. the man remains. let no harm befall him."
because of fairfax's instructions in the art of war, the tribesmen did not hurl themselves forward boldly and with clamor. instead, there was great restraint and self-control, and they were content to advance silently, creeping and crawling from shelter to shelter. by the river bank, and partly protected by a narrow open space, crouched the crees and voyageurs. their eyes could see nothing, and only in vague ways did their ears hear, but they felt the thrill of life which ran through the forest, the indistinct, indefinable movement of an advancing host.
"damn them," fairfax muttered. "they've never faced powder, but i taught them the trick."
avery van brunt laughed, knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and put it carefully away with the pouch, and loosened the hunting-knife in its sheath at his hip.
"wait," he said. "we'll wither the face of the charge and break their hearts."
"they'll rush scattered if they remember my teaching."
"let them. magazine rifles were made to pump. we'll—good! first blood! extra tobacco, loon!"
loon, a cree, had spotted an exposed shoulder and with a stinging bullet apprised its owner of his discovery.
"if we can tease them into breaking forward," fairfax muttered,—"if we can only tease them into breaking forward."
van brunt saw a head peer from behind a distant tree, and with a quick shot sent the man sprawling to the ground in a death struggle. michael potted a third, and fairfax and the rest took a hand, firing at every exposure and into each clump of agitated brush. in crossing one little swale out of cover, five of the tribesmen remained on their faces, and to the left, where the covering was sparse, a dozen men were struck. but they took the punishment with sullen steadiness, coming on cautiously, deliberately, without haste and without lagging.
ten minutes later, when they were quite close, all movement was suspended, the advance ceased abruptly, and the quietness that followed was portentous, threatening. only could be seen the green and gold of the woods, and undergrowth, shivering and trembling to the first faint puffs of the day-wind. the wan white morning sun mottled the earth with long shadows and streaks of light. a wounded man lifted his head and crawled painfully out of the swale, michael following him with his rifle but forbearing to shoot. a whistle ran along the invisible line from left to right, and a flight of arrows arched through the air.
"get ready," van brunt commanded, a new metallic note in his voice. "now!"
they broke cover simultaneously. the forest heaved into sudden life. a great yell went up, and the rifles barked back sharp defiance. tribesmen knew their deaths in mid-leap, and as they fell, their brothers surged over them in a roaring, irresistible wave. in the forefront of the rush, hair flying and arms swinging free, flashing past the tree-trunks, and leaping the obstructing logs, came thom. fairfax sighted on her and almost pulled trigger ere he knew her.
"the woman! don't shoot!" he cried. "see! she is unarmed!"
the crees never heard, nor michael and his brother voyageur, nor van brunt, who was keeping one shell continuously in the air. but thom bore straight on, unharmed, at the heels of a skin-clad hunter who had veered in before her from the side. fairfax emptied his magazine into the men to right and left of her, and swung his rifle to meet the big hunter. but the man, seeming to recognize him, swerved suddenly aside and plunged his spear into the body of michael. on the moment thom had one arm passed around her husband's neck, and twisting half about, with voice and gesture was splitting the mass of charging warriors. a score of men hurled past on either side, and fairfax, for a brief instant's space, stood looking upon her and her bronze beauty, thrilling, exulting, stirred to unknown deeps, visioning strange things, dreaming, immortally dreaming. snatches and scraps of old-world philosophies and new-world ethics floated through his mind, and things wonderfully concrete and woefully incongruous—hunting scenes, stretches of sombre forest, vastnesses of silent snow, the glittering of ballroom lights, great galleries and lecture halls, a fleeting shimmer of glistening test-tubes, long rows of book-lined shelves, the throb of machinery and the roar of traffic, a fragment of forgotten song, faces of dear women and old chums, a lonely watercourse amid upstanding peaks, a shattered boat on a pebbly strand, quiet moonlit fields, fat vales, the smell of hay....
a hunter, struck between the eyes with a rifle-ball, pitched forward lifeless, and with the momentum of his charge slid along the ground. fairfax came back to himself. his comrades, those that lived, had been swept far back among the trees beyond. he could hear the fierce "hia! hia!" of the hunters as they closed in and cut and thrust with their weapons of bone and ivory. the cries of the stricken men smote him like blows. he knew the fight was over, the cause was lost, but all his race traditions and race loyalty impelled him into the welter that he might die at least with his kind.
"my man! my man!" thom cried. "thou art safe!"
he tried to struggle on, but her dead weight clogged his steps.
"there is no need! they are dead, and life be good!"
she held him close around the neck and twined her limbs about his till he tripped and stumbled, reeled violently to recover footing, tripped again, and fell backward to the ground. his head struck a jutting root, and he was half-stunned and could struggle but feebly. in the fall she had heard the feathered swish of an arrow darting past, and she covered his body with hers, as with a shield, her arms holding him tightly, her face and lips pressed upon his neck.
then it was that keen rose up from a tangled thicket a score of feet away. he looked about him with care. the fight had swept on and the cry of the last man was dying away. there was no one to see. he fitted an arrow to the string and glanced at the man and woman. between her breast and arm the flesh of the man's side showed white. keen bent the bow and drew back the arrow to its head. twice he did so, calmly and for certainty, and then drove the bone-barbed missile straight home to the white flesh, gleaming yet more white in the dark-armed, dark-breasted embrace.
该作者的其它作品
《野性的呼唤 the call of the wild》
《白牙 white fang》
《martin eden马丁·伊登》
