The trapper said he wouldn"t and hastened off with his prisoner, delighted indeed to be the first to pa.s.s the good word of their deliverance through Bradleyburg. Bill was well known and liked through all that portion of the North, and his supposed death had been a real blow to the townspeople.
Bill felt wholly able to follow the broad snowshoe track the half-mile farther into town. The footsteps of the men had grown faint and died away,--and Virginia and he were left together on the hill.
They had nothing to say at first. They simply watched the slow encroachment of the twilight. Lights sprang up one and one over the town. Bill bent, and the girl raised her lips to his.
"We might as well go on," he said. "You"re cold--and tired."
"Yes. I can"t believe--I"m saying good-by to the spruce."
"And you"re not, Virginia!" The man"s voice was vibrant and joyful.
"We"ll have to come back often, to oversee the running of the mine--half of every year at least--and we can stay at the old cabin just the same. The woods are beautiful in summer."
"They"re beautiful now."
And they were. She told the truth. For all their savagery, their fearful strength, their beauty could not be denied.
They saw the church spire, tall and ghostly in the twilight, and Bill"s strong arms pressed the girl close. She understood and smiled happily.
"Of course, Bill," she told him. "There is no need to wait. In a few days I"ll be strong enough to stand beside you--at the altar."
So it was decided. They would be married in the quaint, old town of Bradleyburg, in the shadow of the spruce.
They would return, these two. The North had claimed them--but had not mastered them--and they would come back to see again the caribou feeding in the forest, the whirling snows, and the spruce trees lifting their tall heads to the winter stars. They would know the old exultation, the joy of conflict; but no bl.u.s.tering storm or wilderness voice could appall them now. In the security and harbor of their love, no wind was keen enough to chill them, no darkness appall their spirits.
The Northern Lights were beginning their mysterious display in the twilight sky. Far away a coyote howled disconsolately,--a cry that was the voice of the North itself. And the two kissed once more and pushed on down to Bradleyburg.