And I was a
stripling again, for the look was the look of Unga as she ran up
the beach, laughing, to the home of her mother. The stern unrest
was gone, and the hunger, and the weary waiting.
'The time was met. I felt the call of her breast, and it seemed
there I must pillow my head and forget. She opened her arms to
me, and I came against her. Then, sudden, the hate flamed in her
eye, her hand was at my hip. And once, twice, she passed the
knife.
'"Dog!" she sneered, as she flung me into the snow. "Swine!" And
then she laughed till the silence cracked, and went back to her
dead.
'As I say, once she passed the knife, and twice; but she was weak
with hunger, and it was not meant that I should die. Yet was I
minded to stay in that place, and to close my eyes in the last
long sleep with those whose lives had crossed with mine and led
my feet on unknown trails. But there lay a debt upon me which
would not let me rest.
'And the way was long, the cold bitter, and there was little
grub. The Pellys had found no moose, and had robbed my cache. And
so had the three white men, but they lay thin and dead in their
cabins as I passed. After that I do not remember, till I came
here, and found food and fire--much fire.
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