Labiskwee tugged gently at Smoke’s sleeve, and he knew she wished him to follow.  He took his moccasins and German socks in his hand and crept out into the snow in his sleeping moccasins.  Beyond the glow from the dying embers of the fire, she indicated to him to put on his outer foot-gear, and while he obeyed, she went back under the fly where Snass slept.

Feeling the hands of his watch Smoke found it was one in the morning.  Quite warm it was, he decided, not more than ten below zero.  Labiskwee rejoined him and led him on through the dark runways of the sleeping camp.  Walk lightly as they could, the frost crunched crisply under their moccasins, but the sound was drowned by the clamor of the dogs, too deep in their howling to snarl at the man and woman who passed.

“Now we can talk,” she said, when the last fire had been left half a mile behind.

And now, in the starlight, facing him, Smoke noted for the first time that her arms were burdened, and, on feeling, discovered she carried his snowshoes, a rifle, two belts of ammunition, and his sleeping-robes.

“I have everything fixed,” she said, with a happy little laugh.  “I have been two days making the cache.  There is meat, even flour, matches, and skees, which go best on the hard crust and, when they break through, the webs will hold up longer.  Oh, I do know snow-travel, and we shall go fast, my lover.”

Smoke checked his speech.  That she had been arranging his escape was surprise enough, but that she had planned to go with him was more than he was prepared for.  Unable to think immediate action, he gently, one by one, took her burdens from her.  He put his arm around her and pressed her close, and still he could not think what to do.

“God is good,” she whispered.  “He sent me a lover.”

Yet Smoke was brave enough not to suggest his going alone.  And before he spoke again he saw all his memory of the bright world and the sun-lands reel and fade.

“We will go back, Labiskwee,” he said.  “You will be my wife, and we shall live always with the Caribou People.”

“No! no!” She shook her head; and her body, in the circle of his arm, resented his proposal.  “I know.  I have thought much.  The hunger for the world would come upon you, and in the long nights it would devour your heart.  Four Eyes died of hunger for the world.  So would you die.  All men from the world hunger for it.  And I will not have you die.  We will go on across the snow mountains on the south traverse.”

“Dear, listen,” he urged.  “We must go back.”

She pressed her mitten against his lips to prevent further speech.  “You love me.  Say that you love me.”

“I do love you, Labiskwee.  You are my wonderful sweetheart.”

Again the mitten was a caressing obstacle to utterance.

“We shall go on to the cache,” she said with decision.  “It is three miles from here.  Come.”