Page:The trail of the golden horn.djvu/125

Rh “When he has a woman to cook for, he is mighty particular.”

“It’s well that I am along, then,” Marion smilingly replied. “But you don’t look starved,” she reminded, glancing admiringly at the stalwart, handsome man before her.

When Rolfe had the meat browned to his satisfaction, the “sourdough” potatoes fried, and the tea made, he called aloud, “Dinner all ready on the dining-car. That’s what an Indian guide I once had always used to say,” he explained. “If you can’t have certain things, it is often good to imagine that you have them. That was the way with my Indian.”

After supper was over, the dogs were fed, and the constable gathered a supply of wood for the night. Then around the bright fire the three sat and talked for some time. It was not of the North they talked, but of bygone days in their old homes. It was a comfort to turn for a time from the cruel trail and the hardships of a desolate, snow-bound region to other scenes, glorified and made beautiful by the sacred fire of memory.

At length they slept, Marion in her little lean-to, and the men in the other. Silence reigned over the land, broken only by the crackling of the fire or the snapping of a frost-stung tree. The dogs made no sound as they slept curled up close to the fire. Not a breath of wind stirred the most sensitive topmost points of the firs and jack-pines. The sky was cloudless, and the Northern Lights streamed and wavered in the heavens. Above towered the Golden Horn, silent and unseen.

As the night wore on, the fire died down, until only a few glowing ashes remained. Sergeant North stirred