"Maybe you think me a heartless brute," he continued after a moment's pause, "without feeling, or sympathy. Perhaps you're right. Maybe I am. I don't know. Nor do I care. I doubt if you can possibly understand me. I don't understand myself. All I know is, nothing I can remove will ever stand in the way of my achievement. I have no real scruples, and I want you to know all this now—now with our whole futures lying before us. This problem is not as difficult as you seem to think. There is no particular reason why I should not marry you. On the contrary there is every reason why I should. I have had a good year, so good that it might astonish you if you knew the amount of gold I have taken out of the creek. We shall go down to the coast with twice the amount Tug possesses. Tug never knew how well I was doing."
He smiled faintly.
"However," he hastened on, "my plan had been to leave here next spring, to avoid the winter journey, that was all. There will be no work done all the coming winter. So what does it matter if we make the journey six months earlier? It will help you, and does not hurt me. So—don't worry yourself any more about it, but just make your preparations for departure this day week."
The man's usual calm had returned by the time he finished speaking. He had settled the matter in his own way, and his manner left nothing more to be said.
Audie understood. Her eyes were alight with a rapturous joy and devotion, but she realized how little he desired the outburst of gratitude she was longing to pour into his unwilling ears. In spite of the coldness with which he had told her he could never love her, this was probably the happiest moment of her life. She held herself tightly and strove to speak in the same calm manner he had used at the last.
"Thank you, Leo," she said simply. Then she added with an emotion that would not be denied, "I pray God to bless you."
Leo nodded.
"Right ho!" he said coldly. Then he picked up the trout. "Guess we'll get food."
CHAPTER II
THE ROOF OF THE NORTHERN WORLD
Si-wash was a great scout; he was also an Indian of independence and decision, both qualities very necessary in the snow-bound country such as he lived in. But Si-wash understood men very well; particularly the curiously assorted samples of whitemen who sought the remoteness of the Yukon in those early days when the news of its wealth was only just beginning to percolate through to civilized countries. It was for this reason he was as putty in the hands of the man Leo.
When consulted Si-wash protested against Leo's contemplated journey over the winter trail to the coast, especially with the added burden of a white woman. He drew a picture of every difficulty and danger his fertile brain could imagine, and laid it before the cold eyes of the big man. Encouraged by the silence with which his stories were received he finally threw an added decision in his definite refusal to hire his dogs, and conduct the party over the perilous road.
Then Leo rose from his seat on the floor of Si-wash's hut, and invited him to visit his workings on the creek bank. Si-wash went, glad that he had been able to dissuade this man who possessed such cold eyes, and so unsmiling a face.
At the creek Leo spoke quite seriously.
"Si-wash," he said, as they stood beside the frozen, snow-laden stream, "I am disappointed in you. I have brought you here to show you your grave. There it is—under the ice. If you don't hire yourself and dogs to me, if you don't accompany us to the coast, I'll drown you in the water under that ice, where it's so cold that all the fires of hell, where your spirit will surely go, will never be able to thaw you out, though you remain there forever, as you undoubtedly will."
Si-wash both liked and feared Leo. But he hated cold water, in fact water of any sort, and feared talk of hell still more; so there was no further discussion. Si-wash accepted his money in advance; and, nearly a month later, the travelers were scaling the perilous heights of the watershed which is really the roof of the northern world.
Once foot is set on the long winter trail, all rest of mind and body is left behind. Days and nights, alike, become one long nightmare of unease. Every hour of the day carries its threat of danger. Every foot of the way is beset by shoals for the feet of the unwary. And the night—the long northern night—is a painful dream crowded with exaggerated pictures of dangers so narrowly escaped during waking, and vivid suggestions of added terrors which the morning light may reveal.
It is called the Shawnee Trail; vain enough appellation. There is no trail; there never has been a trail; nor will there ever be a trail, so long as the northern winter holds its fierce sway in due season. It is just a trackless wilderness, claiming thoroughfare by reason of the impassability of the rest of the country in that region.
There is no room for life in such a world, for there is no rest or relief. Existence is an endless struggle against the overwhelming odds of an outlaw nature. The great white land is broken and torn. It rises and falls, or plunges precipitately in the manner of a storm-swept ocean; but ever the journeyer is borne upward, ever upward, to the barren crests of the watershed which dominate the melancholy spectacle of Nature's wasted endeavor.
For the most it is a silent land; nor is there movement to break the awesome stillness, unless it be the frequent presence of storm. Otherwise the calm is like the silence of the grave, without a whisper to waken the echoes of the riven, age-worn crags, or a movement to stir the hidden valleys into a seeming of life. It is the stillness of outer darkness, lit only by a wintry sheen, like the death-cold stare of wide, unseeing eyes.
Such thoughts and feelings stirred the woman traipsing easily over the smoothly pressed snow-track left by the laden sled. She moved with the curious swing of the snowshoer, leisurely, comfortably. The gee-pole in her hand was an unnecessary equipment, for her path was fully tested by those who understood far better than she the dangers of the road before them.
Audie's eyes were looking out ahead at the men and the dogs. She knew she had no other responsibility than to keep pace. For the rest she knew that the burden of their journey rested on shoulders more capable of bearing it. So her mind was given up to thoughts which could never enter the men's heads. And those thoughts were full of the unutterable desolation of this untamed world.
Si-wash headed the dogs. A great incline of smooth, soft snow mounted up to the crotch of a great hill, where twin peaks rose sharply, towering above, and a wide pathway was left between them. It was a beacon of the trail, marking one of the roughest stretches yet to be traveled. Beyond this, five miles further on, the scout had marked a camping ground.
Just now he was a little anxious in his silent Indian way, and the sign of it was in his furtive watchfulness, as he peered from the road to the burnished light of the desponding sun.
Leo, swinging along beside the sled, was quite unaware of his guide's unease. The monotony of progress left him free to think whithersoever his active brain listed. For the time it led him on, on into dreams of the future, a future than which he could imagine no other. His fortune, or that which stood for the foundations of it, lay strapped at the tail of the sled, and the knowledge of its presence, the sight of its canvas wrapping stirred him to a gladness which no monotony of the long trail could diminish. For him this was the moment of passing, when the foundations had been carefully laid and the first scaffold pole was about to be set in place round the structure of fortune he intended to build.
The harsh voice of Si-wash struck unpleasantly on his ears.
"Look!" he cried, pointing at the drooping sun with a mitted hand. "It the be-damn sun-dogs. Him look, an' look lak hell. Him much be-damn sun-dogs."
The