Jack London
Wonder of Woman (7)

But the chance did not come to Smoke on the third day. The bachelors had changed the direction of their scout, and while Shorty and McCan plodded up the stream with their dogs, Smoke and the bachelors were sixty miles to the northeast picking up the trail of the second caribou herd. Several days later, through a dim twilight of falling snow, they came back to the big camp. A squaw ceased from wailing by a fire and darted up to Smoke. Harsh tongued, with bitter, venomous eyes, she cursed him, waving her arms toward a silent, fur-wrapped form that still lay on the sled which had hauled it in.

What had happened, Smoke could only guess, and as he came to McCan’s fire he was prepared for a second cursing. Instead, he saw McCan himself industriously chewing a strip of caribou meat.

“I’m not a fightin’ man,” he whiningly explained. “But Shorty got away, though they’re still after him. He put up a hell of a fight. They’ll get him, too. He ain’t got a chance. He plugged two bucks that’ll get around all right. An’ he croaked one square through the chest.”

“Yes, I know,” Smoke answered. “I just met the widow.”

“Old Snass’ll be wantin’ to see you,” McCan added. “Them’s his orders. Soon as you come in you was to go to his fire. I ain’t squealed. You don’t know nothing. Keep that in mind. Shorty went off on his own along with me.”

At Snass’s fire Smoke found Labiskwee. She met him with eyes that shone with such softness and tenderness as to frighten him.

“I’m glad you did not try to run away,” she said. “You see, I—” She hesitated, but her eyes didn’t drop. They swam with a light unmistakable. “I lighted my fire, and of course it was for you. It has happened. I like you better than everybody else in the world. Better than my father. Better than a thousand Libashes and Mahkooks. I love. It is very strange. I love as Francesca loved, as Iseult loved. Old Four Eyes spoke true. Indians do not love this way. But my eyes are blue, and I am white. We are white, you and I.”

Smoke had never been proposed to in his life, and he was unable to meet the situation. Worse, it was not even a proposal. His acceptance was taken for granted. So thoroughly was it all arranged in Labiskwee’s mind, so warm was the light in her eyes, that he was amazed that she did not throw her arms around him and rest her head on his shoulder. Then he realized, despite her candor of love, that she did not know the pretty ways of love. Among the primitive savages such ways did not obtain. She had had no chance to learn.

She prattled on, chanting the happy burden of her love, while he strove to grip himself in the effort, somehow, to wound her with the truth. This, at the very first, was the golden opportunity.

“But, Labiskwee, listen,” he began. “Are you sure you learned from Four Eyes all the story of the love of Paolo and Francesca?”

She clasped her hands and laughed with an immense certitude of gladness. “Oh! There is more! I knew there must be more and more of love! I have thought much since I lighted my fire. I have—”

And then Snass strode in to the fire through the falling snowflakes, and Smoke’s opportunity was lost.

“Good evening,” Snass burred gruffly. “Your partner has made a mess of it. I am glad you had better sense.”

“You might tell me what’s happened,” Smoke urged.

The flash of white teeth through the stained beard was not pleasant. “Certainly, I’ll tell you. Your partner has killed one of my people. That sniveling shrimp, McCan, deserted at the first shot. He’ll never run away again. But my hunters have got your partner in the mountains, and they’ll get him. He’ll never make the Yukon basin. As for you, from now on you sleep at my fire. And there’ll be no more scouting with the young men. I shall have my eye on you.”