the other
communal traits. Beside that, beyond Kaskaskia, at St. Navier and the
North, there was little thought of French or English; the sheer problem
of existence there drowned other considerations. He would, he thought,
go out in the spring ... leave Myrtle Forge with its droning anvil, the
endless, unvaried turning of water wheel, and the facile, trivial
chatter in and about the house. David Forsythe, back from England in the
capacity of master of fluxing metals, might acquire his, Howat's,
interest in the Penny iron.

Fanny Gilkan said, "You'll burn a hole in your coat with that pipe." He
roused himself, and she moved across the room and pinched the smoking
wicks. The embers on the hearth had expired, and the fireplace was a
sooty, black cavern. Fanny, at the candles, was the only thing clearly
visible; the thin radiance slid over the turn of her cheek; her hovering
hand was like a cut-paper silhouette. It was growing late; Thomas Gilkan
would soon be back from the Furnace; he must go. Howat had no will to
avoid Gilkan, but the thought of the necessary conversational exchange
wearied him.

The sound of footsteps approached the house from without; it was, he
thought, slightly annoyed, the founderman; but the progress deflected
by the door, circled to a window at the side. A voice called low and
urgent, "Seemy! Seemy!" It was repeated, and there was an answering
mutter from the stair, a thick murmur and a deep sigh.

The cast boy slipped crumpled and silent in bare feet across the floor.
"Yes," he called back, rapidly waking.

The voice from without continued, "They're going to start up the Oley."

"What is it?" Fanny demanded.

"The raccoon dogs," the boy paused at the door. "A lot of the furnacemen
and woodcutters from round about are hunting."

Fanny Gilkan leaned across the table to Howat, her face glowing with
interest. "Come ahead," she urged; "we can do this anyhow. I like to
hear the dogs yelping, and follow them through the night. You can bring
your gun, I'll leave mine back, and perhaps we'll get something really
big."

Howat himself responded thoroughly to such an expedition; to the mystery
of the primitive woods, doubly withdrawn in the dark; the calls of the
others, near or far, or completely lost in a silence of stars; the still
immensity of a land unguessed, mythical--endless trees, endless
mountains, endless rivers with their headwaters buried in arctic
countries beyond human experience, and