his eyes were keener and vested with greater mental vigor than the average
of his kind. The lines of will had marked his face deeply, and this, coupled
with a sternness and primitiveness, advertised a native indomitability,
unswerving of purpose, and prone, when thwarted, to sullen cruelty.
“To-morrow, Li Wan, we shall feast.” He sucked a marrow-bone clean and
threw it to the dogs. “We shall have flapjacks fried in bacon grease, and
sugar, which is more toothsome—”
“Flapjacks?” she questioned, mouthing the word curiously.
“Ay,” Canim answered with superiority; “and I shall teach you new ways
of cookery. Of these things I speak you are ignorant, and of many more
things besides. You have lived your days in a little corner of the earth and
know nothing. But I,”—he straightened himself and looked at her
pridefully,—”I am a great traveller, and have been all places, even among
the white people, and I am versed in their ways, and in the ways of many
peoples. I am not a tree, born to stand in one place always and know not
what there be over the next hill; for I am Canim, the Canoe, made to go
here and there and to journey and quest up and down the length and
breadth of the world.”
She bowed her head humbly. “It is true. I have eaten fish and meat and
berries all my days and lived in a little corner of the earth. Nor did I dream
the world was so large until you stole me from my people and I cooked
and carried for you on the endless trails.” She looked up at him suddenly.
“Tell me, Canim, does this trail ever end?”
“Nay,” he answered. “My trail is like the world; it never ends. My trail is
the world, and I have travelled it since the time my legs could carry me,
and I shall travel it until I die. My father and my mother may be dead, but
it is long since I looked upon them, and I do not care. My tribe is like your
tribe. It stays in the one place—which is far from here,—but I care naught
for my tribe, for I am Canim, the Canoe!”
“And must I, Li Wan, who am weary, travel always your trail until I die?”
“You, Li Wan, are my wife, and the wife travels the husband’s trail
wheresoever it goes. It is the law. And were it not the law, yet would it be
the law of Canim, who is lawgiver unto himself and his.”
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She bowed her head again, for she knew no other law than that man was
the master of woman.
“Be not in haste,” Canim cautioned her, as she began to strap the meagre
camp outfit to her pack. “The sun is yet hot, and the trail leads down and
the footing is good.”
She dropped her work obediently and resumed her seat.
Canim regarded her with speculative interest. “You do not squat on your
hams like other women,” he remarked.
“No,” she answered. “It never came easy. It tires me, and I cannot take my
rest that way.”
“And why is it your feet point not straight before you ?”
“I do not know, save that they are unlike the feet of other women.
A satisfied light crept into his eyes, but otherwise he gave no sign.
“Like other women, your hair is black; but have you ever noticed that it is
soft and fine, softer and finer than the hair of other women?”
“I have noticed,” she answered shortly, for she was not pleased at such
cold analysis of her sex-deficiencies.
“It is a year, now, since I took you from your people,” he went on, “and
you are nigh as shy and afraid of me as when first I looked upon you. How
does this thing be?”
Li Wan shook her head. “I am afraid of you, Canim, you are so big and
strange. And further, before you looked upon me even, I was afraid of all
the young men. I do not know . . . I cannot say . . . only it seemed,
somehow, as though I should not be for them, as though . . .”
“Ay,” he encouraged, impatient at her faltering.
“As though they were not my kind.”
“Not your kind?” he demanded slowly. “Then what is your kind?”
“I do not know, I . . .” She shook her head in a bewildered manner. “I
cannot put into words the way I felt. It was strangeness in me. I was unlike
other maidens, who sought the young men slyly. I could not care for the
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young men that way. It would have been a great wrong, it seemed, and an
ill deed.”
“What is the first thing you remember?” Canim asked with abrupt
irrelevance.
“Pow-Wah-Kaan, my mother.”
“And naught else before Pow-Wah-Kaan?”
“Naught else.”
But Canim, holding her eyes with his, searched her secret soul and saw it
waver.
“Think, and think hard, Li Wan!” he threatened.
She stammered, and her eyes were piteous and pleading, but his will
dominated her and wrung from her lips the reluctant speech.
“But it was only dreams, Canim, ill dreams of childhood, shadows of
things not real, visions such as the dogs, sleeping in the sun-warmth,
behold and whine out against.”
“Tell me,” he commanded, “of the things before Pow-Wah-Kaan, your
mother.”
“They are forgotten memories,” she protested. “As a child I dreamed
awake, with my eyes open to the day, and when I spoke of the strange
things I saw I was laughed at, and the other children were afraid and drew
away from me. And when I spoke of the things I saw to Pow-Wah- Kaan,
she chided me and said they were evil; also she beat me. It was a sickness,
I believe, like the falling-sickness that comes to old men; and in time I
grew better and dreamed no more. And now . . . I cannot ; remember”—
she brought her hand in a confused manner to her forehead—”they are
there, somewhere, but I cannot find them, only . . .”
“Only,” Canim repeated, holding her.
“Only one thing. But you will laugh at its foolishness, it is so unreal. ”
“Nay, Li Wan. Dreams are dreams. They may be memories of other lives
we have lived. I was once a moose. I firmly believe I was once a moose,
what of the things I have seen in dreams, and heard.”
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Strive as he would to hide it, a growing anxiety was manifest, but Li Wan,
groping after the words with which to paint the picture, took no heed.
“I see a snow-tramped space among the trees,” she began, “and across the
snow the sign of a man where he has dragged himself heavily on hand and
knee. And I see, too, the man in the snow, and it seems I am very close to
him when I look. He is unlike real men, for he has hair on his face, much
hair, and the hair of his face and head is yellow like the summer coat of
the weasel. His eyes are closed, but they open and search about. They are
blue like the sky, and look into mine and search no more. And his hand
moves, slow, as from weakness, and I feel . . .”
“Ay,” Canim whispered hoarsely. “You feel—?” “No! no !” she cried in
haste. “I feel nothing. Did I say ‘feel’? I did not mean it. It could not be that
I should mean it. I see, and I see only, and that is all I see—a man in the
snow, with eyes like the sky, and hair like the weasel. I have seen it many
times, and always it is the same—a man in the snow—”
“And do you see yourself ?” he asked, leaning forward and regarding her
intently. “Do you ever see yourself and the man in the snow?” “Why
should I see myself? Am I not real?”
His muscles relaxed and he sank back, an exultant satisfaction in his eyes
which he turned from her so that she might not see.
“I will tell you, Li Wan,” he spoke decisively; “you were a little bird in
some life before, a little moose-bird, when you saw this thing, and the
memory of it is with you yet. It is not strange. I was once a moose, and my
father’s father afterward became a bear—so said the shaman, and the
shaman cannot lie. Thus, on the Trail of the Gods we pass from life to life,
and the gods know only and understand. Dreams and the shadows of
dreams be memories, nothing more, and the dog, whining asleep in the
sun-warmth, doubtless sees and remembers things gone before. Bash,
there, was a warrior once. I do firmly believe he was once a warrior.”