The daylight was lengthening.  Very slowly the lolling sun was returning to life and power.  A sense of revivifying was in the air.  As yet the grip of winter still held.  The snow was still spread to the depth of many feet upon the broad expanse of the valley of the Sleepers.  But its perfect hue was smirched with the lateness of the season.  It had assumed that pearly grey which denotes the coming of the great thaw.

Marcel was standing on the drifted bank of the little river, winding its way towards the Northern hills.  He was there for the purpose of ascertaining the conditions prevailing.  But his purpose had been forgotten.

Erect, motionless, superb in his physical greatness, he was gazing out at the wall of western hills, heedless of that which he looked upon.  He was absorbed in thought that was reaching out far, far beyond the hills which barred his vision.  It was somewhere out there where the eyeless sockets of an old moose looked down upon the great river coming up out of the south, cutting its way between the granite walls of the earth’s foundations.

Keeko!  He was thinking, dreaming of the girl who had come to him in the heart of the far-off woods, with all her woman’s appeal to his youthful manhood.  He was thinking of her wonderful blue eyes, her radiant smile, her amazing courage.  They were the same thoughts which had lightened even the darkest moments of the howling storms of winter and transformed the deadly monotony of it all into something more than an endurance to which the life of the Northern world condemned him.

But there was more than all this stirring him now.  He was moved to impatience, the impatience of headstrong youth.  It was not new.  He had had to battle against it from the moment of his return to the fort.  More than all else in the world he desired to fling every caution, every responsibility to the winds, and set out for the meeting-place over which the old moose stood guard.

He knew it could not be.  He knew it would be an act of the basest ingratitude and selfishness.  Uncle Steve had not yet returned.  He could not return for weeks yet.  If he, Marcel, yielded to his desires An-ina must be left alone.  His impatience was useless.  He knew that.  The Sleepers would awaken soon, and demand their trade.  He could not fling the burden of it all on the willing shoulders of An-ina.  He must wait.  He could do no less.

He turned away.  It was an act of renunciation.  The signs on the river had told him nothing, because he had asked no question.  He knew it all without asking.  He had known before he had sought his excuse.  So he floundered through the snow back to the fort.

The silence was profound.  The world at the moment was a desert, a frigid desert.  There was no life anywhere.  There were not even the voices of warring dogs to greet him, and yield him excuse to vent the impatience of his mood.

He passed the gateway of the stockade where he had so often stood searching the distance in the long years.  And so he approached the doorway of his home.  A weight of depression clouded his handsome eyes.  He was weighted with a trouble which seemed to him the greatest in the world.

The door of the store opened before he reached it.  Keen, watching, understanding eyes had been observing his approach.  They were eyes that read him with an ease such as was denied them on the contemplation of the pages of an open book.  An-ina had made up her mind, and she stood framed in the doorway to carry out her purpose.

The man’s eyes lighted at sight of her.  His trouble was lifted as though by some strong hand.  This mother woman never failed in her comfort even in the simple fact of her presence.  With his thought still filled with the white beauty of Keeko, the soft copper of An-ina’s skin, the smiling gentleness of her dark eyes were things at all times to soften the roughness of Marcel’s mood.

“Marcel come back?  The ice all hold?  Oh, yes.  Bimeby the trail open and Marcel mak’ him.  An-ina know.  But not yet.”

Marcel made no attempt to conceal his feelings from this woman.  He had told her all.  He had spread out before her all his hopes and fears, all the impatience of his youthful heart.  She had endured the burden of it throughout the long winter not unwillingly, and her sympathy had been yielded abundantly.

Marcel laughed.  It was not out of any feeling of joy.  It was the self-consciousness of youth before the eyes of maturity.

He shook his head.

“Not yet,” he said.  “Uncle Steve isn’t back anyway.”

“No.”  An-ina sighed.  For a moment her smile died out, and her wistful gaze was unconsciously turned towards the North.  It only encountered the crude interior of the storage sheds where the canoes and trail gear were usually kept.  One of the sheds was standing empty.

Presently her eyes came back to the man’s face, and they were smiling confidently again.

“He come bimeby.  Yes.”

Even in the midst of his own troubles Marcel could never be forgetful of this devoted creature.

“He certainly will,” he said, in no doubtful fashion.  “He’ll be along before the Sleepers wake.  Say, An-ina, I’m not wise to many things.  But there’s one I know, like like nothing else.  The North can’t beat Uncle Steve.”

The dark eyes lit with a feeling which even Marcel realized.

“Marcel good.  But An-ina, too, know he come sure.”

The woman paused with her gaze again turned upon the sheds, and after a moment she looked deeply, earnestly into the eyes of the man who held her mother love.

“That why An-ina say to Marcel now,” she went on.  “She think much.  Oh, yes.  An-ina think much this white girl who mak’ Marcel all much happy.  She far away.  Long, long by the trail.  Maybe she come where Marcel say when the river all break up.  It all long piece ’way.  Marcel wait while river him break, then long-piece ’way river break too.  So.  This Keeko girl she come by river.  No?  She mak’ trail.  She think Marcel not come.  He no more care find Keeko.  So.  Marcel go all heap sick.  No Keeko no nothing.”

The woman’s halting words lost nothing of their purpose in their limitations.  Marcel’s brows drew sharply together in alarm at the prospect she painted for him.  Then, after a moment, he passed a hand across his forehead as though to brush his fears aside.

“But Uncle Steve’s not back yet,” he said, as though the fact clinched all argument finally.

An-ina, however, had no intention of accepting any such finality.  She shook her head.

“That all so.  Oh, yes,” she said.  “Uncle Steve not come back long whiles.  But he come back.  When him come An-ina say:  ‘Good.  Much good.’  Then An-ina say:  ’Marcel lose all up white girl, Keeko.  Bad.  Much bad.  No good nothing.’” She shook her head.  “Marcel go now.  Take plenty dog.  Sled.  Canoe.  Oh, yes.  Take all thing.  Reindeer.  Everything plenty.  So.  When river all break Marcel find white girl, Keeko.  He bring Keeko to An-ina.  An-ina much happy.  Uncle Steve happy too.”

The woman drove straight to the purpose at which she aimed.  All the problems concerning the lives of the men she loved held for her a perfectly simple solution.  Steve would come back to her in his own good time.  There was nothing to be considered on that score.  Marcel loved the white girl, Keeko.  He must meet her again when the winter broke, or he would know no happiness.  Then he must go go now so that he should be there to greet her when her canoes came up out of the south.

Self never entered into An-ina’s calculations.  So long as the path of life was made as smooth and pleasant for her men folk as the Northland would permit there was nothing else with which she need concern herself.  She would be alone, unprotected.  When the Sleepers roused from their torpor their trade must be seen to.  Well, that was all right.  She could see to it all.  She saw nothing in these things which must be allowed to interfere with the happiness of any one belonging to her.  Then, too, there was the white girl Keeko.  Her simple woman’s mind was stirred to wonder and curiosity as to the woman who had taken possession of the heart of the man who was to her as a son.

The unselfishness of it all appealed to the simple heart of the youth.  But the passion that had taken possession of him overrode his finer scruples.  The selflessness of the woman was the mother in An-ina.  The emotions of the man were the emotions belonging to those primal laws of nature wherein self stands out supreme over every other instinct.  An-ina was urging him to go to go now to leave her unprotected.  It was the very thing for which he had blamed Uncle Steve.  And he knew from the moment her words had been spoken that he intended to take her at her word.  He shook his head, but his eyes were shining.

“I just can’t do it, An-ina,” he said a little desperately.  “I can’t leave you here alone.  Suppose ”

An-ina interrupted him with her low, almost voiceless laugh.

“An-ina know,” she said with a curious gentle derision which was calculated out of her years of study of the youth.  “An-ina no good.  She not nothing, anyway.  Indian man come beat her head.  She fall dead quick.  Oh, yes.  She not know gun from the ‘gee-pole.’  She got not two hands.  She not learn shoot caribou, same like Marcel.  She big fool-woman.  An-ina know.  Marcel think that.  Steve not think that way.  Oh, no.  Boss Steve plenty wise.  So Marcel come wise later.”  Again came her low laugh.  “This Keeko.  This white girl so like the sun, the moon, all him star.  Marcel love her?  Oh, yes?  An-ina say ‘no.’  Marcel not love her.  Marcel love her, he say:  ’An-ina no ’count Indian woman.  She go plumb to hell anyway.  She nothing.  Only Keeko.  Marcel love her all to death.  He go find her.  He not care.  Only so he find her.’”

Marcel stood dumb with amazement.  His eyes were alight with a laugh he strove to restrain, but they were alight with something else, too.  An-ina watched him.  And her laugh came again as she flung her final taunt.

“Indian man say him love An-ina?” she cried.  “Indian man not come fetch her quick?  Indian man say him not leave mother for An-ina?  Then An-ina spit at him.”

It was the savage breaking through the years of simple culture.  The appeal of it all was beyond Marcel’s power to resist.  Suddenly he flung out his two great arms, and the hands that were immense with his muscular strength came down on the woman’s soft, ample shoulders, and he held her in a great affectionate embrace.

“That’s fixed it, you dear mother thing!” he cried, his face flushing with the joy of it all, the shame of it.  “I’m going right away.  I’m just going to leave you right here to the darn Sleepers, to the wolves, and the dogs, and any old thing that fancies to get around.  There’s no woman going to spit at your Marcel.”

Marcel had gone.  An-ina had seen to that.  She had given him no chance to change his mind, or to permit his duty to override his desire.

There had been little enough likelihood of any such thing happening.  The man was too human, too young, too madly in love.  But An-ina was taking no risk.  So, with her own hands, she helped him prepare his outfit, and she saw to and considered those details for his comfort which, in his superlative impulse, he would probably have ignored.  He went alone.  He refused to rouse one single Sleeper to lend him aid.  His journey was in that treacherous time between the seasons, when the snow and ice would be rotting, and the latter part of his journey would find his winter equipment an added burden.

Then he had set out.  An-ina watched his great figure move away with joy and pride thrilling her heart.  He was out to battle with the elements, with everything which the life of the Northland could oppose to him, for the possession of the woman he loved.  In her simple, half savage mind it was the sign of the crown of manhood to which she had helped him.  She was glad so glad.

The joy of her thought was her great support in the long days of solitude that followed, and it filled her mind with a peace that left her undisturbed.  She filled each moment of her waking hours with the labours which had become her habit.  The Sleepers would soon awaken, and all must be made ready for that moment when the work of the open season began.  It was her simple pride that with the return of her man he should be able to find no fault.

Ah, she was longing for that moment.  The return of her man.  Perhaps a triumphant return.  She did not know.  She could not guess.  His success would give her joy only that she would witness the light of triumph shining in his eyes.  Happiness for her would lie in his return.

He would come.  She knew he would come.  Her faith was expressed in the sublime trust and confidence which her woman’s adoration had built up about the idol of her life.  No god of the human mind was ever endowed with greater, more infallible powers.  So the hours of labour were brief and swiftly passing, for she felt that each detail of her daily life was carried out under the approving eyes that, in her imagination, were always looking on.  She was happy utterly, completely happy.  She could have sung throughout the hours of waking, had song been her habit.  She could have laughed aloud, if the Indian in her permitted it.  Heart, mind, and body were absorbed in her faith.

It was in the dead of night.  An-ina stirred restlessly under the blankets which were those that once had covered the white mother of Marcel.  In a moment she was wide awake, sitting up in the darkness, listening.  The savage barking of the three old dogs, the only dogs now left in the compound behind the fort, had roused her from sleep.  It was a furious chorus that warned her of the unusual.  It suggested to her mind the approach of marauding wolves, or some other creature that haunted the Northern wastes.

She sprang from her bed without a moment’s hesitation.  Fear was unknown to her.  She knew the old dogs, long past the work of the trail, were not easily disturbed in their slumbers.  It was for her to ascertain, if necessary

The chorus was still raging as she flung open the door of the store, and stood peering out into the brilliant night.  Steve’s repeating rifle was ready in her hand.  She had lit the lamp before she removed the bars of the door, and stood silhouetted against its yellow light.  Only a woman or the utterly reckless could have committed such a folly.

With every sense alert, those senses that were so keenly instinct with the perception of the animal world, she searched the shadows within the stockade, and the distance beyond its open gateway.  There was no sign of the marauder she looked for.  But nevertheless the chorus of the canine displeasure and protest went on.  At last she pulled the door to behind her and passed out into the night.

Once in the open her search was swift and keen.  The great enclosure yielded nothing to disturb, so she passed on to the gateway, where the barking of the aged dogs had no power to confuse her observation.

The coldly gleaming sky shone radiantly upon the white-clad earth.  The calm of the world was unbroken.  Even the wind was dead flat, and not a sigh came from the woods which hid up the dreaming Sleepers.  There was nothing.  Nothing at all.  And she determined to return and to silence the foolish old trail dogs with the weight of a rawhide.  Just a few moments longer she waited searching with eyes and ears, then she turned back.

But her purpose remained unfulfilled.  She stood seemingly rooted to the spot while her ears listened to the faint distant shout of a human voice.  It was prolonged.  It had nothing in it of a cry of distress.  It was the call of a voice suggesting a simple signal of approach.

For an instant her heart seemed to leap into her throat.  Then, in a wild surge, it started to hammer as though seeking to free itself from the bonds that held it.  That call.  She knew it.  There could be no mistake.  Nor could she mistake the voice that uttered it.  It was the voice of Steve.  It was the great return of which her faith had assured her.  And high and shrill she flung back her answer, with all the power of her lungs and a grateful heart.

The greeting had been all An-ina had ever dreamed it.  It had been even more, for she had gazed into steady grey eyes shining with the light of triumph.

They were standing in the store where the stove, banked for the long, cold night, was radiating its comforting warmth.  Steve, sturdy, unemotional, was replying to the question which had come with the passing of the woman’s greeting.

“We’re loaded right down, and the dogs are well-nigh beat,” he said, in his quiet way.  “Guess that’s not the reason they’re way back camped while I got on to home though.  It’s the green weed in full bloom, and we daren’t open the bales with folks around without masks.  We daren’t risk a thing that way.  I kind of guessed I’d best get on and warn you and Marcel, and make ready to pass it right into the store-house quick.”  He thrust up a hand and pushed his fur cap back from his brow.  And, for a brief moment, he permitted play to his feelings.  “Say, it’s great, An-ina!  And and I’m just glad.  I guess we’ve been as near hell as this land can show us, but we’ve made good.  The boys are with me back there.  They’re feeling good and fit, and we’ve Where’s Marcel?”

An-ina’s eyes were shining with the joy of a triumph no less than the man’s.  It was the greatest moment of her life.  Had not her idol proved himself even beyond her dreams?  Her gladness only deepened at his sharp question.  She had her great story to tell.  The story which no woman’s heart can resist.

“Him go,” she said, with a little gesture of the hands.  “An-ina send him.  Oh, yes.”

“Gone?  Where?”

Steve was startled.  For a moment a sickening doubt flashed through his mind, and robbed his eyes of the shining joy of his return.

“It Keeko.  She call call.  All the time she call to Marcel, who is great man like to Boss Steve.  Yes.  Oh, yes.  She call this white girl, Keeko.  And An-ina say, ‘Go!  Marcel go!  Bring this white girl.’  But Marcel say, ‘No.  Uncle Steve not come back.  An-ina alone.  Oh, no.  Marcel go bimeby.’  Then An-ina say, ‘Go.’  She know.  Him all sick for Keeko.  So.  Marcel go.”

An-ina’s low, gentle laugh came straight from the woman in her.  Just as her account of Marcel’s reluctance to leave her was a touch of the mother defending her offspring.

But Steve missed these things.  He was amazed.  He was wondering searching.

“White girl?  Keeko?” he exclaimed sharply.  “What crazy story Tell me!” he commanded.  “Tell me quick!”

He flung aside his cap, and the furs which encased his sturdy body.  Then he caught up a bench, and set it beside the stove.  He sat down, and held out his strong hands to the warmth with that habit which belongs to the North.

An-ina remained standing.  It was her way to stand before him.  She would tell her story thus.  Was she not in the presence of the man whose smile was her greatest joy on earth?