FullReads

He bent down and laid his cheek against his woman’s hands, and his throat choked with a passionate resolution. He put his merry, careless young manhood behind him at that moment and assumed the responsibilities of a husband.

“May God strike me dead if I don’t make you happy!” he whispered.

VII

CONCLUSION

Bailey woke in the night, chilled. The fire was low, and as he rose to add some coal to the stove he looked about him in his way. Rivers’ bunk was empty. He glanced toward the bed, and saw him wrapped in his buffalo coat kneeling beside Blanche’s pillow. He seemed asleep, as his cheek rested upon his right hand, which was clasped in both of hers.

The young pioneer sat for several minutes thinking, staring straight at his friend. There was something here that made all the difference in the world. Suppose these people really loved each other as he loved Estelle? Then he softly fed the fire and lay down again.

His brain whirled as if some sharp blow had dazzled him. Outside the implacable winds still rushed and warred, and beat and clamored, shrieking, wailing, like voices from hell. The snow dashed like surf against the walls. It seemed to cut off the little cabin from the rest of the world and to dwarf all human action like the sea. It made social conventions of no value, and narrowed the question of morality to the relationship of these three human souls.

Lying there in the dark, with the elemental war of wind and snow filling the illimitable arch of sky, he came to feel, in a dim, wordless way, that this tragedy was born of conventions largely. Also, it appeared infinitesimal, like the activities of insects battling, breeding, dying. He came also to feel that the force which moved these animalculae was akin to the ungovernable sweep of the wind and snow–all inexplicable, elemental, unmoral.

His thought came always back to the man kneeling there, and the clasp of the woman’s hands–that baffled him, subdued him.

When he awoke it was light. The roar of the wind continued, but faint, far away, like the humming of a wire with the cold. He lay bewildered, half dreaming, not knowing what it was that had impressed him with this unwonted feeling of doubt and weariness. At last he heard a movement in the room and rose on his elbow. Rivers was awake and was peering out at the window.

Blanche replied to his words of greeting with a low murmur–“I feel very weak.”

She seemed calmer, also, and her eyes had lost something of their tension of appeal.

Bailey looked at her closely, and his heart softened with pity. He waited upon her and tried by his cheerful smiles to comfort her, nevertheless.

They ate breakfast in silence, as if apprehending the struggle which was still to come.

At last Rivers rose with abrupt resolution.

“Well, now, I’ll bring the team around, and we’ll get away.”

“Wait a minute, Jim,” Bailey said. “I want to say something to you.” There was a note of pleading in his voice. “Wait a little. I’ve been thinking this thing over. I don’t want you to go away feeling hard toward me.” His throat choked up and his eyes grew dim. “I don’t want to be hard on you, Jim. It’s a mighty big question, and I’m not one to be unjust, specially toward a woman. Of course, somebody’s got to suffer, but it hadn’t ought to be the woman–I’ve made up my mind on that. Seems like the woman always does get the worst of it, and I want you to think of her. What is to become of her?”

Blanche turned toward him with a wondrous look–a look which made him shiver with emotion. He looked down a moment, and his struggle to speak made him seem very boyish and gentle.

“I can’t exactly justify this trade, Jim, but I guess it all depends on the mother. She ought to be happy anyway, whether you are or not; so if she thinks she’d better go with you, why, I ain’t got a word to say.”