The Silent Battle

e she awoke. The first thing she discovered was that at some time during the night he had put his coat over her again. She held it for a moment in her fingers thinking, before she rose; the

serious wound, but the few drops of blood made her think it so; and, pale and a little frightened, she made her way to the stream and dipped it into the cooling water, bathing and bandaging it with her handkerchief.She had learned something. The woods were only friendly to those who knew how to cope with them. She did not know how to cope with them, and at this moment hated them blindly. There seemed to be nothing left but to sit by the fire and have a cry. This done, she felt[51] better, but she made no further attempt to build the hut.The sky darkened rapidly and a few drops of rain pattered noisily among the dry leaves. She had no means of learning the hour of the day. She guessed that it would soon be time to prepare supper, but for a long while she did not move. She was conquered by the inevitable facts of nature and her eyes plaintively regarded the beginnings of the house which might have been, but was not.The fire, like her spirits of the morning, had sunk. But she rose now, her face set in hard little lines of determination, and laid on fresh logs. As the cheerful flames arose her spirits kindled, too, and she lifted the creels from the limb and sat down again in her accustomed place to prepare the scanty meal. Her eyes sought the up-country trail more frequently and more anxiously, but the shadows of the night had fallen thickly before she decided to cook her solitary meal. She was not hungry as she had been in the morning and even the odor of the cooking fish was not appetizing. She only cooked because cooking at this time seemed part of the established order of things and because cooking was something that belonged to the things that she could do.She ate mechanically, rose and washed her utensils without interest. The rain was falling steadily; but she did not seem to care, and only when she had finished her tasks did she seek the shelter of the hut. Even then she stood leaning against the young birch-tree looking out at the darkness and listening, her brows puckered in tiny wrinkles of worry. At last with a sigh, she sank on her balsam bed and closed her eyes.The night was sombrous and the rain had been falling for an hour. The girl sat beneath the shelter of her[52] projecting eave upon the ground, where she might look out up the stream, her chin on her knees, her hands clasped about her ankles, watching the rain drops fall glistening into the circle of firelight and hiss spitefully among the fretting flames. She had been crying again and her eyes were dark with apprehension. Her hair hung in moist wisps about her brow and temples and her lips were drawn in plaintive lines. She listened intently. A dead branch in the distance cracked and fell. She started up and peered out for the hundredth time in the direction from which she might expect his approach. Only the soft patter of the rain on the soaked foliage and the ominous blackness of before! She went out into the wet, heaping more logs upon the flames. The fire at least must be kept burning. He had asked that of her. That was her duty and she did it unquestioning like the solitary cliff-woman, awaiting in anxious expectation the return of her lord. She would not lie down upon her balsam bed; for that would mean that she denied the belief that he would return, and so she sat, her forehead now bent upon her knees, her eyes closed, only her ears acutely alive to the slightest distant sounds.Suddenly she raised her head, her eyes alight. She heard sounds now, human sounds, the crunch of footfalls in the moist earth, the snapping of fallen twigs. She ran out into the rain and called joyously. A voice answered. She ran forward to meet him. He emerged into the light striding heavily, bent forward under the weight of something he was carrying.“Oh, I’m so glad,” she cried, her voice trembling. “I had begun to fear—I don’t know what. I thought—you—you—weren’t coming back.”He grinned wearily. “I believe I’d almost begun to think so myself. Phew! But the thing is heavy!”[53]He lowered it from his shoulders and threw it heavily near the fire.“W—what is it?” she asked timidly.“A deer. I shot it,” he said laconically.He straightened slowly, getting the kinks out of his muscles with an effort; and she saw that his face was streaked with grime and sweat and that his body in the firelight was streaming with moisture. His eyes peered darkly from deep caverns.“Oh! You’re so tired,” she cried. “Sit down by the fire at once, while I cook your supper.” And, as he made no move to obey her, she seized him by the arms and led him into the shelter of the hut and pushed him gently down upon the couch. “You’re not to bother about anything,” she went on in a businesslike way. “I’ll have you something hot in a jiffy. I’m so—so sorry for you.”He sat in the bunk, with a drooping head, his long legs stretched toward the blaze.“Oh, I’m all right,” he grunted. But he watched her flitting to and fro with dull eyes and took the cup of water she offered him without protest. She spitted the fish skillfully, crouching on the wet log as she broiled them, while he watched her, half asleep with the grateful sense of warmth and relaxation. He did not realize until now that he had been on the move with little rest for nearly eighteen hours, during four of which he had carried a double burden.The cedar tea she brought him first. He made a wry face but emptied the saucepan.“By George, that’s good! I never tasted anything better.” He ate hungrily—like an animal, grumbling at the fish bones, while she cooked more fish, smiling at him. There was some of the squirrel left and he ate that, too, not stopping to question why she had not eaten it herself.[54] Another saucepan of the tea, and he gave a great sigh of satisfaction and moved as though to rise. But she pushed him gently down again, fumbling meanwhile in the pockets of his coat which lay beside the bed.“Your pipe—and tobacco,” she said, handing them to him with a smile. “I insist, you deserve them,” she went to the fire and brought him a glowing pine twig, and blew it for him until the tobacco was ready. In a moment he was puffing mechanically.She sank quickly upon the dry ground beside him and he looked at her in amazement.“I forgot,” he muttered. “Your ankle!”“It’s well,” she smiled. “I had forgotten it, too. I haven’t used the crutch since morning.”“I’m glad of that, a day or two of rest and we’ll soon be out of here.”He had not spoken of their predicament before, nor had she. It seemed as though in the delight of having him (or some one) near her, she had forgotten the object of his pilgrimage. He had not forgotten. His mind and body ached too sorely for him to forget his failure. She saw the tangle at his brows and questioned timidly.“You had—had no luck?”“No, I hadn’t, and I went almost to the headwaters. I found no signs of travel anywhere, though I searched the right bank carefully. I thought I could remember—” he put his hand to his brow and drew his long fingers down his temple, “but I didn’t.”“Don’t worry about it. I’m not frightened now. In a day or two when I’m quite sure of my foot, we’ll go out together. I think I