The Heart of Unaga Part 39

"Say, Keeko," he cried, gazing up into the troubled eyes watching him, and addressing the girl by name for the first time, "let's sit. We've got to make a big talk. Anyway, I have. I feel like one of those fool neches sitting in a war council, and handing out wisdom that wouldn't fool a half-hatched skitter. Still, I reckon I've got one h.e.l.l of a notion, and notions worry me to death if I can't hand 'em on to some feller who can't defend himself. I'm not often worried that way. Will you listen awhile?"

Marcel's effort was not without effect. The girl's eyes cleared of their shadows, swept away by a smiling amus.e.m.e.nt. She found him quite irresistible in the gloom of her twilight surroundings, and forthwith permitted herself to subside upon the ground opposite him, with legs crossed, and her rifle lying across her knees.

"It's easy listening," she said with a laugh.

"Good!"

Marcel laughed, too.

"Now, it's this," he began, with a profound solemnity that delighted the girl. "If I hand you anything you don't fancy listening to, why, say so right away, and I'll quit. You see, I don't get much practice handing it out to a girl, and I'm liable to make breaks--bad breaks. You see, we're mostly a thousand miles outside the world, and you're a lone girl in a h.e.l.l of a lone land. I'd be thankful for you to get hold of it that I was raised to reckon a girl needs all the help a decent man can hand her. That's his duty. Plumb. And he hasn't a right on earth to figger on any return. Well, I haven't got over that notion yet. It goes with me every time, and I pray the good G.o.d of this darnation wilderness it always will. I allow this is just preliminary, to make you feel good before I start in to talk. It isn't the sermon you may guess it is, so that'll make it easier remembering what lies back of my head when you start--guessing."

Marcel produced a pipe and stuffed it with the tobacco he flaked off a sad-looking plug. The pipe was crudely carved in Eskimo fashion out of the ivory of a walrus tusk. Keeko watched him silently with an interest she made no attempt to disguise, while deep in her heart was stirring that feeling she was wholly unconscious of. His "preliminary" was unnecessary. In her woman's way she read him to her own satisfaction.

He lit his pipe carefully, and as carefully extinguished his match. They were in a forest where the decaying vegetation was as dry as tinder.

"You need pelts," he said, after a considering pause. "You need three thousand dollars trade in 'em. You want silver fox and black fox.

Well--you can have enough to set Lorson Harris squealing."

Keeko was startled.

"But--I don't get you!" she cried, with the helplessness of complete amazement.

"It's easy."

Marcel smoked on in leisurely enjoyment of the surprise he had given this nymph of the primordial.

Keeko shook her head.

"You mean--" she broke off. "No, you're a pelt hunter yourself. You said so. We're rivals on the fur trail."

"Rivals?" Marcel sat up in his turn. "We can't be," he said earnestly.

"I'm some sort of a man. You're a--girl. You've forgotten."

They sat regarding each other. A great hope was in Marcel's heart. In fancy he was picturing to himself months of this girl's companionship in the deep silences and tremendous solitudes which had become so much a part of his life. He had visions of this tall, beautiful creature always by his side, ready, skilful, eager. With the sympathy of their craft always between them, and, for himself, a purpose, an incentive such as never in his life had he possessed. The contemplation of it all was too wonderful for words. It was a dream, a happy, wonderful dream.

But for Keeko it was all different. She was not concerned with a dream future. She was thinking of the generosity, the reckless generosity that set this splendid youth desirous of yielding all to satisfy her needs. He asked no question as to those needs. He knew nothing of her, or of those shadows lurking in her background. He only understood that she wanted, and it was his pleasure and purpose to supply that want at his own expense.

"I haven't forgotten," she said, with something like a sigh. "But you want to hand me furs that are your own trade. And I--I can't accept them."

She shook her head definitely. Then with an effort she thrust the regret she felt into the background, and her eyes lit with a smile of humour.

"You haven't heard the notion _I_ was raised to--yet," she said.

"No."

Marcel was satisfied with the return of her smile.

"Would you like to?"

"Sure."

The girl laughed.

"I guess it's not as simple as yours," she said. "A woman's reason isn't generally simple. You see, she musses up feelings with argument which generally confuse the issue. Guess a woman's life is mostly a thing of confusion. You see, she started bad, though it wasn't her fault. When the folks, who ought to know better, started in to make man before his mother you can't wonder it's that way. Now I was raised to believe man is woman's rightful protector. There's women who reckon she's got man left standing when it comes to helping things along. But she's the sort of woman who always cooks her own favourite dish when she reckons to give her man a real treat. There's the other woman who's so sure man is her rightful protector that she's not content to wait around for his protection. She gets right out and grabs it, along with anything else he's foolish enough to leave within her reach. Then there's the woman who shouts around that she doesn't need protecting anyway. She mostly ends up with grabbing all the man-protection that happens to be lying around, without worrying whose 'claim' she's jumping. But to get back to the notion I was raised to, it seems to me that man is surely a woman's rightful protector, but there isn't a thing on earth can make me see that she's the right to take any sort of protection he hasn't the right to give. That sort of woman's a vampire. And vampires are things I'd like to see drowned so deep they can't ever resurrect. If I took your pelts I'd be a vampire for taking something you haven't the right to give. They're your trade, and I guess out of your trade you've got to pay your outfit of Eskimo. Do you see? To my way of thinking those furs are not yours to give, just because you find a fool girl squealing for three thousand dollars of trade. But say," she added, with a warmth of real feeling in her smiling eyes, "I thank you for the thought. I thank you right from the bottom of my heart."

Marcel remained quite undisturbed. He sat deliberately puffing at his absurdly ornamented pipe, his honest eyes meditatively smiling. The girl's rejection of his offer only made him the more determined. At last he stirred, and sat up cross-legged, and, removing his pipe, pointed his words with its stem, as though to drive them more fully home.

"That's all right," he said. "I'm making no kick on that. It just makes me feel how sore you need those pelts, and how right I am to want to hand 'em to you. I've told you what I fancy doing. Now we'll form a committee and negotiate. Folks always form committees when they can't agree, and then they can't agree worse. Committees always elect one of their members chairman, and he has a casting vote. We're a committee of two, so we'll elect a chairman, and that'll make three--chairman with casting vote. I'll elect myself chairman. That way we'll have no sort of difficulty. All in favour, etc." He thrust up both hands and his pipe while he boyishly gazed up at them with a triumphant smile.

"Carried unanimously," he cried. "Now I've two says to your one----"

"I was reckoning it was more than that," Keeko interrupted, laughing.

"Were you? Maybe you're right," Marcel agreed. "Well, say, let's cut the fooling. See here, Keeko," he went on earnestly. "I've got all the pelts you need to my own share. I wouldn't be robbing even an Eskimo, who most folks reckon to rob. As for me, I'm no sort of real trader. I just hunt pelts because it suits me, and I like to hear Lorson Harris squeal when I make him pay my prices. Still, you don't reckon to accept, that way.

That being so, how's this? I'm just free as air to hunt where I choose.

My outfit's scattered, and each hunts on his own. Well, I've all the catch I need. You can guess that, seeing I've given nine days and nights to trailing this old moose that isn't worth the cost of the powder that shot him up. Cut me out as a trader. Just take me on as guide. I'll join your outfit till it freezes up, and I'll find you the best foxes the North Country ever produced. I'll promise you that three thousand dollars and to spare. It isn't bluff. It's just G.o.d's truth. And if you feel like you're sick to death of the sight of what folks who's friendly call my face any old time, why you only need to say things, and I'll hit a trail out of sight at a gait that would leave a caribou flapping its ears with worry. I mean that, every darn word, and the chairman and half this fool committee are voting for it. Well?"

The appeal was irresistible. Keeko would have been less than the woman she was had she further resisted the happy enthusiasm and youthful impulse of this great creature who had been a stranger to her less than an hour ago. There was honesty and confidence in every word he uttered, and there was that simple boyish admiration in his good-looking eyes which made the final unconscious appeal. She yielded, yielded in that spirit which promptly left Marcel her slave for all time.

Her eyes were br.i.m.m.i.n.g with a smile that possessed the moisture of tears of thankfulness.

"Guess this committee is unanimous," she said. "There's no argument left in them. But it wants to record the biggest vote of thanks to the chairman that was ever pa.s.sed--and doesn't know how to express it.

We----"

But Marcel was on his feet and holding out his great hands to help the girl to hers. His eyes were wide and shining in a way that must have lit a happy smile in the steady eyes of Uncle Steve, had he been there to witness.

"Where's your camp?" he cried. "I need to start my job right away."

The man's demand was thrilling with the feelings of the moment. Keeko ignored his help. She, too, was on her feet in a moment, and pointing away amongst the shadows of the forest to the west.

"Back on the river," she cried, catching something of the infection of the other's headlong impulse. Then with a glance down at the fallen moose which had been the means of bringing them together, her tone altered to one of almost tenderness. "But this?" she questioned.

Marcel laughed.

"Don't worry with that. I'll come along for the skull and the horns when the wolves have done with it. I've quit big game. I'm out for fox, silver and black. I'm out to break Lorson Harris's bank roll--for you.

Come on!"

CHAPTER VII

SUMMER DAYS

The youth in Marcel was abundant, it was even headlong. But even so, there was a strong steadying strain of wisdom in him, the wisdom of the Northland, bought at a price that few can afford to pay. It served to hold the balance under the influence of this new adventure.

It was something more than adventure. There was a significance in the extraordinary encounter with Keeko that dimmed to the commonplace every thrill he had ever experienced in the past. It had lifted him at a bound to that pinnacle of manhood, which until the moment when woman presents herself upon youth's stage of life can never be reached.