it was six weeks later. the dawn came less early, and nightfall perceptibly sooner.
there was a new crispness in the air, and the leaves on the trees were losing their greenness and taking on every possible shade, from pale yellow to old gold, and from that to dusky red. both stane and helen yardely noticed the signs. autumn was upon them and they were still in their camp by the lake, though now stane was able to hobble about with a pair of crutches made from a couple of forked sticks, padded with moss at the forks for his arms, and covered with caribou skin. helen herself was busy from dawn to sunset. from words that he had dropped she knew that they had lost in the race with the seasons, and that winter would be on them before he would be able to take the trail. she faced the dreary prospect light-heartedly, but under his instruction omitted no precautions that would make a winter sojourn in the wild land tolerable. fish were caught and dried, rabbits and hares snared, not merely for meat, but for their skins, which when a sufficient number had been accumulated were fashioned into parkas and blankets against the arctic cold which was surely marching on them.
the leaves began to fall, light frosts were succeeded by heavier ones, and one morning they awoke to find a thin film of ice on the surface of the still water of the little bay where their camp was located. stane viewed the ice with ominous eyes. he was incapable of any heavy physical exertion as yet, and knowing the north in all its inimical aspects, he was afraid for his companion, and though he rejoiced in her frank comradeship, he regretted that she had let ainley and the indian depart without knowledge of her presence. guessing that the lake was some sort of waterway between two points, daily, almost hourly, in the frequent absences of the girl, he scanned it for any sign of human presences, but in vain. the lake's surface was unbroken by the movement of canoe or boat; its shores showed no tell-tale column of smoke. they were indeed alone in the wilderness.
but one afternoon the girl returned from a hunting expedition with excitement shining in her grey eyes.
"i have found something," she announced abruptly.
"what is it?"
"there is a cabin up the lake, about three miles away."
"a cabin?"
"yes, and a very nice one, logs with a stone chimney and a parchment window. there was no one about, and the door was only held by a hasp and a wooden peg, so i ventured to look in. it has a stove, a rough table, a bunk and a couple of logs plainly meant for chairs."
stane considered her news for a moment and then gave an obvious explanation. "it is some trapper's hut. he is away, and will probably return for the trapping season."
"yes," she answered with a nod. "i thought that was the explanation. but there is nothing to prevent us taking possession until the owner returns, if he ever does, is there?"
"no," he answered slowly.
"then tomorrow we will remove house," she said with a little laugh. "it's the only sensible thing to do. the place is clean and warm and comfortable; and if we take possession of it we shall be under no temptation to take the trail before you are really fit."
"but——"
"but me no buts," she cried in mock reproval. "you know that it is the really wise thing to do, for if the weather turns bad, where are we—with a canvas tent and a rather leaky birch-bark tepee? it would be the very rankest folly not to take advantage of my discovery and you know it."
stane was compelled to admit that she was right, and said so.
"then tomorrow i will raft you up to our new abode," she answered cheerfully. "there is no wind, and has been none for days. it will be easy to pole the raft along the shore."
having announced this decision she began to busy herself about the camp, singing softly to herself; and stane watched her with appreciative eyes. she was thinner than when they had first met, her face was bronzed, her chestnut hair in its outer folds bleached almost golden by the strong sunlight of the past summer. she radiated health and vitality, and though she was dressed masculinely, femininity was the dominant note about her. in the weeks that had passed since he had saved her from the river she had developed amazingly. apparently there was nothing of the softness of the over-civilized left in her. that had been eliminated by the harsh necessity of labour which circumstances had thrust upon her; and the life of the wilderness had developed in her elemental powers. she was now the strong mate-woman, quick in judgment, resourceful in action, and of swift courage in danger. his eyes glowed as he watched her, and a soft look came on his face. as it happened helen turned and saw it.
"what is it?" she asked quickly, a look of expectancy in her eyes.
he hesitated. that look challenged him. he knew that if he said all that he felt she would respond. but the unfairness of such action prevented him from doing so, and though he was strongly tempted he turned aside.
"nothing that i can tell you," he said in answer to her question.
"oh!" she retorted, "you are a most tantalizing person. why cannot you tell me? if the matter is secret you have no cause to be afraid. to whom could i whisper it in this wilderness?"
she waved a hand half-round the compass as she spoke, and stood there looking at him, still with the look of expectancy in her eyes, and with a little dash of colour in her bronzed cheeks.
"i am not afraid of your whispering it to any one," replied stane, with a poor attempt at laughter.
"then why not tell me?" she urged.
"because——" began the man, and then stopped. the temptation surged up anew within him, the stress of it almost broke down his resolution. then he cried, almost violently, "no! i cannot tell you—now."
"now!" she said, in tremulous laughter. "now! 'behold now is the accepted time and now is the day of salvation.' unless the religious education of your youth was sadly neglected you ought to know that. the present is the only time. but if you will not tell me this tantalizing secret now, you will some time?"
"some time!" he answered.
"it is a promise," she insisted and now there was no laughing note in her voice, and her face was very serious.
"yes," he answered, "it is a promise."
"then i write it on the tablets of my mind. i shall hold you to it, and some day i shall demand its fulfilment."
she turned and resumed her work and singing at the same time, and stane lay there looking at her with the love shining plainly in his eyes. he had no doubt that she divined that which he would not speak; that indeed it was no secret to her, and that she was glad in the knowledge he could hardly question. her bearing as well as her singing told him that; and he knew that in the last few minutes they had travelled a very long way towards full revelation of each other; and that the day when he should speak would bring to her nothing that was not already within the sphere of her knowledge.
the next day was spent in removal to the cabin further up the lake, both of them working at poling the raft with all their stores. the cabin was well situated on a small bay, where a fair-sized stream emptied into the lake, and behind it stretched the forest, dark and impenetrable. as he hobbled through the open door, stane looked round, and under the bunk discovered a number of steel-traps which the girl on her first visit had overlooked. also on a peg in a dark corner he found a set of dogs' harness hung just as the owner had left it, probably months before. he pointed the traps out to the girl.
"as i guessed, it is a trapper's cabin, miss yardely. any day may bring the owner back."
"possession is nine points of the law," she laughed. "what is the term the gold-seekers use, jump?—yes, we will jump the claim, for the present at any rate."
"the owner may come back while there is open water, or he may wait for the ice."
"but we are tenants of the furnished cabin meanwhile," she answered cheerfully, "and may as well make ourselves at home. i'm going to light the stove."
inside the cabin there was a little wood-pile, and with a few well-chosen logs and dried sticks she soon had the stove roaring, and then began to bestow their possessions tidily. by the time that was accomplished the shadows were creeping across the lake and deepening in the woods, and it was time for the evening meal, and when it was ready they ate it at the rough table, with a sense of safety and comfort that had long been lacking. "this place is quite cosy," said helen, looking round the firelit cabin. "tomorrow i shall make a curtain for the doorway out of caribous skins."
"tomorrow," laughed stane, "the owner may return."
"but he will not turn us out," cried helen. "the men of the wilds are all hospitable."
"that is true," agreed stane, "and i have no doubt that we should be allowed to winter here if we chose. but if the man comes there is a better way. we shall be able to engage him to take us to fort malsun, and so to safety and civilization."
"oh!" laughed the girl, "are you so anxious to go back to civilization?"
stane's face suddenly clouded, and the old hardness came back to it.
"there is no going back for me—yet," he answered bitterly.
"but you will return, some day," she answered quietly. "i have no doubt of that at all. but i was not thinking of that when i spoke, i was wondering whether you were tired of this primitive life. for my part i quite enjoy it. it is really exhilarating to know that one has to depend upon one's self, and to find unexpected qualities revealing themselves at the call of circumstances. i think i shall never be the same again, my old life seems contemptibly poor and tame when i look back upon it."
"i can understand that," he answered, turning from his bitterness. "the wilderness gets into one's blood."
"particularly if it is a little wild to start with," she replied cheerfully, "as i really believe mine is."
"there are men who have lived up here for years, enduring hunger and every kind of hardship, hazarding life almost daily, who having stumbled suddenly upon a fortune, have hurried southward to enjoy their luck. they have been away a year, two years, and then have drifted back to the bleak life and hazard of the north."
"it is not difficult to believe that," answered helen. "the life itself is the attraction up here."
stane permitted himself to smile at her enthusiasm and then spoke. "but if you had to live it day by day, year in and year out, miss yardely, then——"
"oh then," she interrupted lightly, "it might be different. but——" she broke off suddenly and a sparkle of interest came in her eyes. pointing to the pile of wood in the corner she cried: "mr. stane, i am sure there is something hidden under that wood."
stane started and stared at the stacked-up logs, a slight look of apprehension on his face. the girl laughed as she caught the look. "it is nothing to be alarmed at; but those logs are misleading i am sure, for at one place i can see something gleaming. what it is i don't know, but i am going to find out."
rising quickly, she began to throw down the logs and presently uncovered a large square tin that at some time or another had contained biscuits. pursuing her investigations she uncovered two similar tins and for a moment stood regarding them with curious eyes. then she lifted one.
"it is heavy," she exclaimed. "what do you think it is—gold?"
stane laughed. "judging by the ease with which you lift it, i should say not."
"i'm going to learn," she replied, and promptly began to operate on a close-fitting lid. it took her a little time, but at last, with the aid of stane's knife, she managed to remove it. then she gave an exclamation of disappointment.
"what is it?" asked stane.
"i don't know. it looks like—wait a minute!" she took a small pinch of the contents and lifting it to her mouth, tasted it. "flour!"
"flour! you don't say?"
there was a joyous exalting note in the man's voice that made the girl swing round and look at him in surprise.
"you seem delighted!" she said wonderingly.
"i am," he replied.
"but—well i don't exactly see why! if it were gold, i could understand. one always finds gold in these deserted cabins, according to the story-books. and we find flour—and you rejoice!"
"i do," answered stane joyfully. "miss yardely, that flour is a godsend. we were very short, as you told me, only a pound or two left, and i was afraid that we might have to live on meat and fish alone, and you don't know what that means. i do! i lived for three weeks on moose-meat last winter and i haven't forgotten it yet. for heaven's sake open the other tins."
the girl obeyed him, and presently the remaining tins revealed their contents. one held about nine pounds of rice and the other was three parts filled with beans.
"we're in luck, great luck!" cried stane. "just the things we need. any time during the last fortnight i would have given a thousand pounds for those stores."
"i expect the owner, if he returns, will be glad to sell them you for a good deal less," she retorted with mock petulance. "it was treasure trove i was hoping for."
"you can't live on gold," laughed stane, "and you can on the contents of these tins. we must annex them. if the owner has deserted the cabin it won't matter; and if he returns he will bring fresh stores with him, those being but the surplus of his last winter's stock. nothing could have been more fortunate."
"but flour, and rice and beans!" protested helen in simulated disgust. "they are so unromantic! it will sound so poor if ever i tell the story in a drawing-room!"
stane laughed again. "there's nothing romantic about straight meat without change. those cereals are the best of treasure trove for us."
"well," conceded the girl laughing with him. "you ought to know, and if you are satisfied i must be. if these stores will carry us through the time until we start for civilization i won't grumble."
to stane the discovery of the stores was a great relief, far greater than the girl knew. of starvation he had had no fear, for they were in a good game country, but he knew the danger of a meat diet alone, and now that for the time being that danger was eliminated, he was correspondingly relieved; the more so when, two mornings later, the door of the hut being opened they beheld a thin powdering of shot-like snow.
"winter is here!" said helen, a little sobered at the sight of the white pall.
"yes," he answered. "you found this hut just in time."
no more snow fell for over a fortnight, and during that time, despite the cold, stane spent many hours practising walking without crutches. the fracture had quite knit together, and though his muscles were still weak, he gained strength rapidly, and as far as possible relieved the girl of heavier tasks. he chopped a great deal of wood, in preparation for the bitter cold that was bound to come and stored much of it in the hut itself. he was indefatigable in setting snares, and one day, limping in the wood with a rifle, he surprised a young moose-bull and killed it, and cached the meat where neither the wolves nor the lynxes could reach it. then at the close of a dull, dark day the wind began to blow across the lake, whistling and howling in the trees behind, and the cold it brought with it penetrated the cabin, driving them closer to the stove. all night it blew, and once, waking behind the tent canvas with which the bunk where she slept was screened, the girl caught a rattle on the wooden walls of the cabin, that sounded as if it were being peppered with innumerable pellets. in the morning the wind had fallen, but the cabin was unusually dark, and investigation revealed that in a single night the snow had drifted to the height of the parchment window. the cold was intense, and there was no stirring abroad; indeed, there was no reason for it, since all the wild life of the forest that they might have hunted, was hidden and still. seated by the stove after breakfast, helen was startled by a brace of cracks like those of a pistol. she started up.
"what was that? some one fired——"
"no!" answered stane quickly. "just a couple of trees whose hearts have burst with the cold. there will be no one abroad this weather."
but in that, as events proved, he was mistaken. for when, in the early afternoon, wrapped in the fur garments which the girl had manufactured at their old camp, they ventured forth, not twenty yards away from the hut stane came suddenly upon a broad snow-shoe trail. at the sight of it he stopped dead.
"what is it?" asked the girl quickly.
"some one has been here," he said, in a curious voice. without saying anything further he began to follow the trail, and within a few minutes realized that whoever had made it had come down the lake and had been so interested in the cabin as to walk all around it. the tracks of the great webbed-shoes spoke for themselves and even helen could read the signs plainly.
"whoever is it?" she asked in a hushed voice, looking first at the sombre woods and then out on the frozen snow-wreathed lake.
stane shook his head. "i haven't the slightest notion, but whoever it was watched the cabin for a little time. he stood there on the edge of the wood, as the deeper impression in the snow shows."
"perhaps the owner whose palace we have usurped has returned."
stane again shook his head. "no! he would have made himself known, and besides he would most certainly have had a team of dogs with him. whoever the visitor was he came down the lake and he went back that way."
"it is very mysterious," said helen, looking up the frozen waste of the lake.
"yes," answered stane, "but rather reassuring. we are not quite alone in this wilderness. there must be a camp somewhere in the neighbourhood, but whether of white men or of indians one can only guess."
"and which do you guess?" asked helen quickly.
"indians, i should say, for a white man would have given us a call."
"and if indians, they may be friendly or otherwise?"
"yes."
"then," she said, with a little laugh, "we shall have to keep our eyes lifting and bolt the door o' nights!"
"it will be as well," agreed stane, as he began to circle round the cabin again. "indians are not always law-abiding, particularly in the north here. in any case we must try and find out where this one comes from, for if he is friendly we may be able to get dogs, and with dogs our journey to civilization will be easy."
he spoke lightly, but there was a grave look on his face, and as she watched him following the snow-shoe tracks to the edge of the ice-bound lake, helen yardely knew that he was much disturbed by the mysterious visit of the unknown man.
