For a long time there was silence, and Roscoe lay as if he were asleep.  It was not an ordinary silence, the silence of a still room, or of emptiness—­but a silence that throbbed and palpitated with an unheard life, a silence which was thrilling because it spoke a language which Roscoe was just beginning to understand.  The fire grew redder, and the cone-shaped vacancy at the top of the tepee grew duskier, so Roscoe knew that night was falling outside.  Far above he could hear the storm wailing over the top of the mountain.  Redder and redder grew the birch flame that lighted up the profile of the girl’s face.  Once she turned, so that he caught the lustrous darkness of her eyes upon him.  He could not hear the breath of the two in front of the fire.  He heard no sound outside except that of the wind and the trees, and all grew as dark as it was silent in the snow-covered tepee, except in front of the fire.  And then, as he lay with wide-open eyes, it seemed to Roscoe as though the stillness was broken by a sob that was scarcely more than a sigh, and he saw the girl’s head droop a little lower in her hands, and fancied that a shuddering tremor ran through her slender shoulders.  The fire burned low, and she reached out for more fagots.  Then she rose slowly, and turned toward him.  She could not see his face in the gloom, but the deep breathing which he feigned drew her to him, and through his half-closed eyes he could see her face bending over him, until one of her heavy braids slipped over her shoulder and fell upon his breast.  After a moment she sat down silently beside him, and he felt her fingers brush gently through his tangled hair.  Something in their light, soft touch thrilled him, and he moved his hand in the darkness until it came in contact with the big, soft braid that still lay where it had fallen across him.  He was on the point of speaking, but the fingers left his hair and stroked as gentle as velvet over his storm-beaten face.  She believed that he was asleep, and a warm flood of shame swept through him at the thought of his hypocrisy.  The birch flared up suddenly, and he saw the glisten of her hair, the glow of her eyes, and the startled change that came into them when she saw that his own eyes were wide open, and looking up at her.  Before she could move he had caught her hand, and was holding it tighter to his face—­against his lips.  The birch bark died as suddenly as it had flared up; he heard her breathing quickly, he saw her great eyes melt away like lustrous stars into the returning gloom, and a wild, irresistible impulse moved him.  He raised his free hand to the dark head, and drew it down to him, holding it against his feverish face while he whispered Rameses’s prayer of thankfulness in Cree: 

“The spirits bless you forever, Meeani.”

The nearness of her, the touch of her heavy hair, the caress of her breath stirred him still more deeply with the strange, new emotion that was born in him, and in the darkness he found and kissed a pair of lips, soft and warm.