ief that possessed her as she
talked to him. It gave him a sort of shock. He wanted to tell her, with
his arms about her, that it was impossible, and that it was his duty to
make her realize the truth. Her father was dead now, even if she had
last seen him alive. The little brown men had got him, and had
undoubtedly hacked him into small pieces, as was their custom when
inspired by war-madness. It was inconceivable to think of him as still
being alive even if there had been armed friends with him. There was
Olaf Anderson and his five men, for instance. Fighters every one of
them. And now they were dead. What chance could this other man have?

Her joy when she saw that he understood her added to the uncertainty
which was beginning to grip him in spite of all that the day had meant
for him. Her faith in him, since that thrilling moment in the darkness,
was more than ever like that of a child. She was unafraid of Bram now.
She was unafraid of the wolves and the storm and the mysterious
pursuers from out of the north. Into his keeping she had placed herself
utterly, and while this knowledge filled him with a great happiness he
was now disturbed by the fact that, if they escaped from the cabin and
the Eskimos, she believed he would return with her down the Coppermine
in an effort to find her father. He had already made the plans for
their escape and they were sufficiently hazardous. Their one chance was
to strike south across the thin arm of the Barren for Pierre Breault's
cabin. To go in the opposite direction--farther north without dogs or
sledge--would be deliberate suicide.

Several times during the afternoon he tried to bring himself to the
point of urging on her the naked truth--that her father was dead. There
was no doubt of that--not the slightest. But each time he fell a little
short. Her confidence in the belief that her father was alive, and that
he was where she had marked the cross on the map, puzzled him. Was it
conceivable, he asked himself, that the Eskimos had some reason for NOT
killing Paul Armin, and that Celie was aware of the fact? If so he
failed to discover it. Again and again he made Celie understand that he
wanted to know why the Eskimos wanted HER, and each time she answered
him with a hopeless little gesture, signifying that she did not know.
He did learn that there were two other white men with Paul Armin.

Only by looking at his watch did he know when the night closed in. It
was seven o'clock