So called Li Wan1 to the man whose head was hidden beneath the squirrel-skin robe, but she called softly, as though divided between the duty of waking him and the fear of him awake. For she was afraid of this big husband of hers, who was like unto none of the men she had known. The moose-meat sizzled uneasily, and she moved the frying-pan to one side of the red embers. As she did so she glanced warily2 at the two Hudson Bay dogs dripping eager slaver from their scarlet3 tongues and following her every movement. They were huge, hairy fellows, crouched4 to leeward5 in the thin smoke-wake of the fire to escape the swarming6 myriads7 of mosquitoes. As Li Wan gazed down the steep to where the Klondike flung its swollen8 flood between the hills, one of the dogs bellied9 its way forward like a worm, and with a deft10, catlike stroke of the paw dipped a chunk11 of hot meat out of the pan to the ground. But Li Wan caught him from out the tail of her eye, and he sprang back with a snap and a snarl12 as she rapped him over the nose with a stick of firewood.
"Nay13, Olo," she laughed, recovering the meat without removing her eye from him. "Thou art ever hungry, and for that thy nose leads thee into endless troubles."
But the mate of Olo joined him, and together they defied the woman. The hair on their backs and shoulders bristled14 in recurrent waves of anger, and the thin lips writhed15 and lifted into ugly wrinkles, exposing the flesh-tearing fangs16, cruel and menacing. Their very noses serrulated and shook in brute17 passion, and they snarled18 as the wolves snarl, with all the hatred19 and malignity20 of the breed impelling21 them to spring upon the woman and drag her down.
"And thou, too, Bash, fierce as thy master and never at peace with the hand that feeds thee! This is not thy quarrel, so that be thine! and that!"
As she cried, she drove at them with the firewood, but they avoided the blows and refused to retreat. They separated and approached her from either side, crouching22 low and snarling23. Li Wan had struggled with the wolf-dog for mastery from the time she toddled24 among the skin-bales of the teepee, and she knew a crisis was at hand. Bash had halted, his muscles stiff and tense for the spring; Olo was yet creeping into striking distance.
Grasping two blazing sticks by the charred25 ends, she faced the brutes26. The one held back, but Bash sprang, and she met him in mid-air with the flaming weapon. There were sharp yelps27 of pain and swift odors of burning hair and flesh as he rolled in the dirt and the woman ground the fiery28 embers into his mouth. Snapping wildly, he flung himself sidewise out of her reach and in a frenzy29 of fear scrambled30 for safety. Olo, on the other side, had begun his retreat, when Li Wan reminded him of her primacy by hurling31 a heavy stick of wood into his ribs32. Then the pair retreated under a rain of firewood, and on the edge of the camp fell to licking their wounds and whimpering by turns and snarling.
Li Wan blew the ashes off the meat and sat down again. Her heart had not gone up a beat, and the incident was already old, for this was the routine of life. Canim had not stirred during the disorder33, but instead had set up a lusty snoring.
"Come, Canim!" she called. "The heat of the day is gone, and the trail waits for our feet."
The squirrel-skin robe was agitated34 and cast aside by a brown arm. Then the man's eyelids35 fluttered and drooped36 again.
"His pack is heavy," she thought, "and he is tired with the work of the morning."
A mosquito stung her on the neck, and she daubed the unprotected spot with wet clay from a ball she had convenient to hand. All morning, toiling38 up the divide and enveloped39 in a cloud of the pests, the man and woman had plastered themselves with the sticky mud, which, drying in the sun, covered their faces with masks of clay. These masks, broken in divers40 places by the movement of the facial muscles, had constantly to be renewed, so that the deposit was irregular of depth and peculiar41 of aspect.
Li Wan shook Canim gently but with persistence42 till he roused and sat up. His first glance was to the sun, and after consulting the celestial43 timepiece he hunched44 over to the fire and fell-to ravenously45 on the meat. He was a large Indian fully46 six feet in height, deep-chested and heavy-muscled, and his eyes were keener and vested with greater mental vigor47 than the average of his kind. The lines of will had marked his face deeply, and this, coupled with a sternness and primitiveness48, advertised a native indomitability, unswerving of purpose, and prone50, when thwarted51, to sullen52 cruelty.
"To-morrow, Li Wan, we shall feast." He sucked a marrow-bone clean and threw it to the dogs. "We shall have flapjacks fried in bacon grease, and sugar, which is more toothsome—"
"Flapjacks?" she questioned, mouthing the word curiously53.
"Ay," Canim answered with superiority; "and I shall teach you new ways of cookery. Of these things I speak you are ignorant, and of many more things besides. You have lived your days in a little corner of the earth and know nothing. But I,"—he straightened himself and looked at her pridefully,—"I am a great traveller, and have been all places, even among the white people, and I am versed54 in their ways, and in the ways of many peoples. I am not a tree, born to stand in one place always and know not what there be over the next hill; for I am Canim, the Canoe, made to go here and there and to journey and quest up and down the length and breadth of the world."
She bowed her head humbly55. "It is true. I have eaten fish and meat and berries all my days and lived in a little corner of the earth. Nor did I dream the world was so large until you stole me from my people and I cooked and carried for you on the endless trails." She looked up at him suddenly. "Tell me, Canim, does this trail ever end?"
"Nay," he answered. "My trail is like the world; it never ends. My trail is the world, and I have travelled it since the time my legs could carry me, and I shall travel it until I die. My father and my mother may be dead, but it is long since I looked upon them, and I do not care. My tribe is like your tribe. It stays in the one place—which is far from here,—but I care naught56 for my tribe, for I am Canim, the Canoe!"
"And must I, Li Wan, who am weary, travel always your trail until I die?"
"You, Li Wan, are my wife, and the wife travels the husband's trail wheresoever it goes. It is the law. And were it not the law, yet would it be the law of Canim, who is lawgiver unto himself and his."
She bowed her head again, for she knew no other law than that man was the master of woman.
"Be not in haste," Canim cautioned her, as she began to strap57 the meagre camp outfit58 to her pack. "The sun is yet hot, and the trail leads down and the footing is good."
She dropped her work obediently and resumed her seat.
Canim regarded her with speculative59 interest. "You do not squat60 on your hams like other women," he remarked.
"No," she answered. "It never came easy. It tires me, and I cannot take my rest that way."
"And why is it your feet point not straight before you?"
"I do not know, save that they are unlike the feet of other women."
A satisfied light crept into his eyes, but otherwise he gave no sign.
"Like other women, your hair is black; but have you ever noticed that it is soft and fine, softer and finer than the hair of other women?"
"I have noticed," she answered shortly, for she was not pleased at such cold analysis of her sex-deficiencies.
"It is a year, now, since I took you from your people," he went on, "and you are nigh as shy and afraid of me as when first I looked upon you. How does this thing be?"
Li Wan shook her head. "I am afraid of you, Canim, you are so big and strange. And further, before you looked upon me even, I was afraid of all the young men. I do not know ... I cannot say ... only it seemed, somehow, as though I should not be for them, as though ..."
"Ay," he encouraged, impatient at her faltering61.
"As though they were not my kind."
"Not your kind?" he demanded slowly. "Then what is your kind?"
"I do not know, I ..." She shook her head in a bewildered manner. "I cannot put into words the way I felt. It was strangeness in me. I was unlike other maidens62, who sought the young men slyly. I could not care for the young men that way. It would have been a great wrong, it seemed, and an ill deed."
"What is the first thing you remember?" Canim asked with abrupt63 irrelevance64.
"Pow-Wah-Kaan, my mother."
"And naught else before Pow-Wah-Kaan?"
"Naught else."
But Canim, holding her eyes with his, searched her secret soul and saw it waver.
"Think, and think hard, Li Wan!" he threatened.
She stammered65, and her eyes were piteous and pleading, but his will dominated her and wrung66 from her lips the reluctant speech.
"But it was only dreams, Canim, ill dreams of childhood, shadows of things not real, visions such as the dogs, sleeping in the sun-warmth, behold67 and whine68 out against."
"Tell me," he commanded, "of the things before Pow-Wah-Kaan, your mother."
"They are forgotten memories," she protested. "As a child I dreamed awake, with my eyes open to the day, and when I spoke69 of the strange things I saw I was laughed at, and the other children were afraid and drew away from me. And when I spoke of the things I saw to Pow-Wah-Kaan, she chided me and said they were evil; also she beat me. It was a sickness, I believe, like the falling-sickness that comes to old men; and in time I grew better and dreamed no more. And now ... I cannot remember"—she brought her hand in a confused manner to her forehead—"they are there, somewhere, but I cannot find them, only ..."
"Only," Canim repeated, holding her.
"Only one thing. But you will laugh at its foolishness, it is so unreal."
"Nay, Li Wan. Dreams are dreams. They may be memories of other lives we have lived. I was once a moose. I firmly believe I was once a moose, what of the things I have seen in dreams, and heard."
Strive as he would to hide it, a growing anxiety was manifest, but Li Wan, groping after the words with which to paint the picture, took no heed70.
"I see a snow-tramped space among the trees," she began, "and across the snow the sign of a man where he has dragged himself heavily on hand and knee. And I see, too, the man in the snow, and it seems I am very close to him when I look. He is unlike real men, for he has hair on his face, much hair, and the hair of his face and head is yellow like the summer coat of the weasel. His eyes are closed, but they open and search about. They are blue like the sky, and look into mine and search no more. And his hand moves, slow, as from weakness, and I feel ..."
"Ay," Canim whispered hoarsely72. "You feel—?"
"No! no!" she cried in haste. "I feel nothing. Did I say 'feel'? I did not mean it. It could not be that I should mean it. I see, and I see only, and that is all I see—a man in the snow, with eyes like the sky, and hair like the weasel. I have seen it many times, and always it is the same—a man in the snow—"
"And do you see yourself?" he asked, leaning forward and regarding her intently. "Do you ever see yourself and the man in the snow?"
"Why should I see myself? Am I not real?"
His muscles relaxed and he sank back, an exultant73 satisfaction in his eyes which he turned from her so that she might not see.
"I will tell you, Li Wan," he spoke decisively; "you were a little bird in some life before, a little moose-bird, when you saw this thing, and the memory of it is with you yet. It is not strange. I was once a moose, and my father's father afterward74 became a bear—so said the shaman, and the shaman cannot lie. Thus, on the Trail of the Gods we pass from life to life, and the gods know only and understand. Dreams and the shadows of dreams be memories, nothing more, and the dog, whining75 asleep in the sun-warmth, doubtless sees and remembers things gone before. Bash, there, was a warrior76 once. I do firmly believe he was once a warrior."
Canim tossed a bone to the brute and got upon his feet. "Come, let us begone. The sun is yet hot, but it will get no cooler."
"And these white people, what are they like?" Li Wan made bold to ask.
"Like you and me," he answered, "only they are less dark of skin. You will be among them ere the day is dead."
Canim lashed77 the sleeping-robe to his one-hundred-and-fifty-pound pack, smeared78 his face with wet clay, and sat down to rest till Li Wan had finished loading the dogs. Olo cringed at sight of the club in her hand, and gave no trouble when the bundle of forty pounds and odd was strapped79 upon him. But Bash was aggrieved80 and truculent81, and could not forbear to whimper and snarl as he was forced to receive the burden. He bristled his back and bared his teeth as she drew the straps82 tight, the while throwing all the malignancy of his nature into the glances shot at her sideways and backward. And Canim chuckled83 and said, "Did I not say he was once a very great warrior?"
"These furs will bring a price," he remarked as he adjusted his head-strap and lifted his pack clear of the ground. "A big price. The white men pay well for such goods, for they have no time to hunt and are soft to the cold. Soon shall we feast, Li Wan, as you have feasted never in all the lives you have lived before."
She grunted84 acknowledgment and gratitude85 for her lord's condescension86, slipped into the harness, and bent87 forward to the load.
"The next time I am born, I would be born a white man," he added, and swung off down the trail which dived into the gorge88 at his feet.
The dogs followed close at his heels, and Li Wan brought up the rear. But her thoughts were far away, across the Ice Mountains to the east, to the little corner of the earth where her childhood had been lived. Ever as a child, she remembered, she had been looked upon as strange, as one with an affliction. Truly she had dreamed awake and been scolded and beaten for the remarkable89 visions she saw, till, after a time, she had outgrown90 them. But not utterly91. Though they troubled her no more waking, they came to her in her sleep, grown woman that she was, and many a night of nightmare was hers, filled with fluttering shapes, vague and meaningless. The talk with Canim had excited her, and down all the twisted slant92 of the divide she harked back to the mocking fantasies of her dreams.
"Let us take breath," Canim said, when they had tapped midway the bed of the main creek93.
He rested his pack on a jutting94 rock, slipped the head-strap, and sat down. Li Wan joined him, and the dogs sprawled95 panting on the ground beside them. At their feet rippled96 the glacial drip of the hills, but it was muddy and discolored, as if soiled by some commotion97 of the earth.
"Why is this?" Li Wan asked.
"Because of the white men who work in the ground. Listen!" He held up his hand, and they heard the ring of pick and shovel98, and the sound of men's voices. "They are made mad by gold, and work without ceasing that they may find it. Gold? It is yellow and comes from the ground, and is considered of great value. It is also a measure of price."
But Li Wan's roving eyes had called her attention from him. A few yards below and partly screened by a clump99 of young spruce, the tiered logs of a cabin rose to meet its overhanging roof of dirt. A thrill ran through her, and all her dream-phantoms roused up and stirred about uneasily.
"Canim," she whispered in an agony of apprehension100. "Canim, what is that?"
"The white man's teepee, in which he eats and sleeps."
She eyed it wistfully, grasping its virtues101 at a glance and thrilling again at the unaccountable sensations it aroused. "It must be very warm in time of frost," she said aloud, though she felt that she must make strange sounds with her lips.
She felt impelled102 to utter them, but did not, and the next instant Canim said, "It is called a cabin."
Her heart gave a great leap. The sounds! the very sounds! She looked about her in sudden awe103. How should she know that strange word before ever she heard it? What could be the matter? And then with a shock, half of fear and half of delight, she realized that for the first time in her life there had been sanity104 and significance in the promptings of her dreams.
"Cabin" she repeated to herself. "Cabin." An incoherent flood of dream-stuff welled up and up till her head was dizzy and her heart seemed bursting. Shadows, and looming
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