The Silent Battle

n across the zenith, putting to flight the shadows of violet and purple which retreated westward in rout before the gorgeous pageantry of the dawn.The girl stirred and started up at once, smi

ed his wrist.“I’m afraid so. Your pulse is thumping pretty fast.”“Very fast?”“Yes.”“You must be mistaken.”“No, you have fever. You’ll have to rest to-day.”“I don’t want to rest. I couldn’t if I wanted to.”“You must!” she said peremptorily. “There’s nothing but the firewood. I can get that.”“There’s the shack to build,” he said.“The shack must wait,” she replied.“And the deer to be butchered?”She looked at the carcass and then put her fingers over her eyes. But she looked up at him resolutely.[65]“Yes,” she persisted, “I’ll do that, too—if you’ll show me how.”He looked at her a moment with a soft light in his deep-set eyes and then rose heavily to his feet.“It’s very kind of you to want to make me an invalid,” he said, “but that can’t be. There’s nothing wrong with me. What I want is work. The more I have the better I’ll feel. I’m going to skin the deer.” And disregarding her protests, he leaned over and caught up the hind-legs of the creature, dragging it into the bushes.The effort cost him a violent throbbing in the head and pains like little needle pricks through his body. His eyes swam and the hand that held his knife was trembling; but after a while he finished his work, and cutting a strong young twig, thrust it through the tendons of the hind legs and carried the meat back to camp, hanging it high on a projecting branch near the fire.She watched him moving slowly about, but covered her eyes at the sight of his red hands and the erubescent carcass.“Don’t you feel like a murderer?” she asked.“Yes,” he admitted, “I think I do; half of me does—but the hunter, the primitive man in me is rejoicing. There’s an instinct in all of us that belongs to a lower order of creation.”“But it—it’s unclean——”“Then all meat is unclean. The reproach is on the race—not on us. After all we are only first cousins to the South-Sea gentlemen who eat one another,” he laughed.“I don’t believe I can eat it,” she shuddered.“Oh, yes, you will—when you’re hungry.”“I’ll never eat meat again,” she insisted. “Never! The brutality of it!”“What’s the difference?” he laughed. “In town[66] we pay a butcher to do our dirty work—here we do it ourselves. Our responsibilities are just as great there as here.”“That’s true—I never thought of that, but I can’t forget that creature’s eyes.” And while she looked soberly into the fire, he went down to the stream and cleansed himself, washing away all traces of his unpleasant task. When he returned she still sat as before.“Why is it?” she asked thoughtfully, “that the animal appetites are so repellent, since we ourselves are animals? And yet we tolerate gluttony—drunkenness among our kind? We’re only in a larva state after all.”He had sunk on the log beside her for the comfort of the blaze, and as she spoke the shadows under his brows darkened with his frown and the chin beneath its stubble hardened in deep lines.“I sometimes think that Thoreau had the right idea of life,” she said slowly. “There are infinite degrees of gluttony—infinite degrees of drunkenness. I felt shame for you just now—for myself—for the blood on your hands. I can’t explain it. It seemed different from everything else that you have done here in the woods, for the forest is clean, sweet-smelling. I did not like to feel ashamed for you. You see,” she smiled, “I’ve been rating you very highly.”“No,” he groaned, his head in his hands. “Don’t! You mustn’t do that!”At the somber note she turned and looked at him keenly. She could not see his face, but the fingers that hid it were trembling.“You’re ill!” she gasped. “Your body is shaking.”He sat up with an effort and his face was the color of ashes.“No, it’s nothing. Just a chill, I think. I’ll be all right in a minute.”[67]But she put her arm around him and made him sit on the log nearest to the fire.“This won’t do at all,” she said anxiously. “You’ve got to take care of yourself—to let me take care of you. Here! You must drink this.”She had taken the flask from her pocket and before he knew it had thrust it to his lips. He hesitated a moment, his eyes staring into space and then without question, drank deep, his eyes closed.And as the leaping fires went sparkling through his body, he set the vessel down, screwed on the lid and put it on the log beside him. Two dark spots appeared beneath the tan and mounted slowly to his temples, two red spots like the flush of shame. An involuntary shudder or two and the trembling ceased. Then he sat up and looked at her.“A mustard foot-bath and some quinine, please,” he asked with a queer laugh.But she refused to smile. “You slept in your soaking clothes last night,” severely.He shrugged his shoulders and laughed again.“That’s nothing. I’ve done that often. Besides, what else could I do? If you had wakened me——”“That is unkind.”She was on the verge of tears. So he got to his feet quickly and shaking himself like a shaggy dog, faced her almost jauntily.“I’m right as a trivet,” he announced. “And I’m going to call you Hebe—the cup-bearer to the gods—or Euphrosyne. Which do you like the best?”“I don’t like either,” she said with a pucker at her brow. And then with the demureness which so became her. “My name is—is Jane.”“Jane!” he exclaimed. “Jane! of course. Do you know I’ve been wondering, ever since we’ve been here what[68] name suited you best, Phyllis, Millicent, Elizabeth, and a dozen others I’ve tried them all; but I’m sure now that Jane suits you best of all. Jane!” he chuckled gleefully. “Yes, it does—why, it’s you. How could I ever have thought of anything else?”Her lips pouted reluctantly and finally broke into laughter, which showed her even white teeth and discovered new dimples.“Do you really like it?”“How could I help it? It’s you, I tell you—so sound, sane, determined and a little prim, too.”“I’m not prim.”“Yes,” he decided, “you’re prim—when you think that you ought to be.”“Oh.”He seated himself beside her, looking at her quizzically as though she was a person he had never seen before—as though the half-identity she provided had invested her with new and unexpected attributes.“It was nice of you to tell me. My name is Phil,” he said.“Is it?” she asked almost mechanically.&