just
a--girl."

It was the pride of youth and strength that spoke. Uncle Steve would not
have talked that way--now. Years ago--perhaps. Years ago before his
terrible journey across Unaga, when he, too, had defied the very things
Marcel now spurned.

But the awe in Keeko's eyes only deepened.

"Maybe you're right," she said doubtfully. "But sometimes it scares me.
Scares me to death."

She drew a long breath as she made the admission.

Marcel's quick answer came with a laugh of amusement.

"Yet you come up this river with just three neches," he cried. "You make
rapids that would hold me guessing, for all the outfit of Eskimo I
carry. You'll beat it back south to your home against a two mile stream
with a deadly winter hard on your moccasined heels. I just want to laff.
You're scared! Why, get a look right out there, just as far as you can
see. I mean where the haze shuts down like a curtain on a forbidden
world. There, where there's the dim outline of one big hill propping up
the roof of things, standing above all the others. If you took the
notion there were pelts there that would worry Lorson Harris to pay for,
you'd think no more of making those hills than you worry with the trail
over this darn river. That scare notion isn't worth two cents."

The admiration, the obvious delight of Marcel as he derided the girl's
plea left a great warmth of pleasure flooding Keeko's eyes.

"You think that?" she cried. Then with a nod: "I'm kind of glad. But you
don't know Little One Man--yet. And Snake Foot. And Med'cine Charlie. It
isn't me. I've maybe the will. But--I haven't the skill, or the grit.
No. My boys were raised on the rapids of the Dubawnt River. If you heard
Little One Man I guess you'd know just what that means. As for me, I've
learned things from necessity. I had to learn, same as I've to collect
those furs Lorson Harris is going to pay for. Oh, I'm not full of a
courage like you think. It's will. Will bred of necessity. It's the sort
of will that can't reckon the balance of chances. Chances just don't
exist. That's all. It's as you say. That ghost of a hill yonder would
have to hand me what I need if I couldn't get it nearer home. But I'd be
scared--sure. Badly scared, same as I felt watching you waiting on that
moose."

Marcel withdrew his gaze from the tremendous view beyond the river. He
turned to the scene of the little encampment so far down below. He saw a
moving figure by the canoes, beached on th