Though she did not understand, she had listened with intense attention, as though life hung on his speech.  But she caught at her husband’s name and cried out in Eskimo:—­

“Yes!  Yes!  Fairfax!  My man!”

“Poor little fool, how could he be your man?”

But she could not understand his English tongue, and deemed that she was being trifled with.  The dumb, insensate anger of the Mate-Woman flamed in her face, and it almost seemed to the man as though she crouched panther-like for the spring.

He cursed softly to himself and watched the fire fade from her face and the soft luminous glow of the appealing woman spring up, of the appealing woman who foregoes strength and panoplies herself wisely in her weakness.

“He is my man,” she said gently.  “Never have I known other.  It cannot be that I should ever know other.  Nor can it be that he should go from me.”

“Who has said he shall go from thee?” he demanded sharply, half in exasperation, half in impotence.

“It is for thee to say he shall not go from me,” she answered softly, a half-sob in her throat.

Van Brunt kicked the embers of the fire savagely and sat down.

“It is for thee to say.  He is my man.  Before all women he is my man.  Thou art big, thou art strong, and behold, I am very weak.  See, I am at thy feet.  It is for thee to deal with me.  It is for thee.”

“Get up!” He jerked her roughly erect and stood up himself.  “Thou art a woman.  Wherefore the dirt is no place for thee, nor the feet of any man.”

“He is my man.”

“Then Jesus forgive all men!” Van Brunt cried out passionately.

“He is my man,” she repeated monotonously, beseechingly.

“He is my brother,” he answered.

“My father is Chief Tantlatch.  He is a power over five villages.  I will see that the five villages be searched for thy choice of all maidens, that thou mayest stay here by thy brother, and dwell in comfort.”

“After one sleep I go.”

“And my man?”

“Thy man comes now.  Behold!”

From among the gloomy spruces came the light carolling of Fairfax’s voice.

As the day is quenched by a sea of fog, so his song smote the light out of her face.  “It is the tongue of his own people,” she said; “the tongue of his own people.”

She turned, with the free movement of a lithe young animal, and made off into the forest.

“It’s all fixed,” Fairfax called as he came up.  “His regal highness will receive you after breakfast.”

“Have you told him?” Van Brunt asked.

“No.  Nor shall I tell him till we’re ready to pull out.”

Van Brunt looked with moody affection over the sleeping forms of his men.

“I shall be glad when we are a hundred leagues upon our way,” he said.

* * * * *