, the tight
lips parted and the hair disarranged about flushed, quivering cheeks,
the eyes deep with widened pupils, she had revealed beauty and
passion--the two halves of youth. How blind, how blind Hugh had been,
blind and selfish and greedy, drinking up the woman's heart, feeding
upon her youth!

CHAPTER XII

"When you sit so silent, Pete," Sylvie said softly, "I sometimes wonder
if you're not staring at me."

"When I'm making a trap," he answered, smiling a little to himself and
instinctively shifting his gaze, "I can't very well be staring at you,
can I?"

He was kneeling on the ground before the cabin door, she sitting on the
low step under the shadow of the roof. Her chin rested on the backs of
her hands, the limber wrists bent up a little, the sleeves slipped away
from her slim, white wrists. Her face was brightly rosy, her lips very
red--at once a little stern, yet very sweet.

"Traps are cruel," she said.

"I think so myself. But we have to make a living, don't we?"

"Aren't you ashamed of yourself sometimes, Pete?"

"For making traps, and catching live things in them?"

"Yes. It's a sort of deceitful cruelty, catching the little blind,
wandering wild things."

"Blind?" he repeated blankly, then flushed.

"Yes, blind. But it wasn't only that I meant."

"What else ought I to be ashamed of?"

"Of living on your brother." He winced sharply, but she went on coolly:
"Of staying here in the wilderness. You are a big boy now. Many a boy of
your age, even smaller and weaker, has gone out in the world to make his
own way. There's no reason for _you_ to hide, is there? _You_ haven't
sacrificed your life for anyone."

"No," he answered doubtfully, "n-no; but, you see, Sylvie, some one has
to take the skins. It isn't safe for Hugh."

"Yes, of course. So that's what you'll do all your life--carry loads to
and fro, between this cabin and the trading-station. But if Hugh goes
away himself?"

"Yes?" he asked breathlessly.

His skillful hands paused in their fashioning of a snare.

"You know, of course, that he wants to take me away with him, to marry
me, to start life again."

"And--and you will, Sylvie?"

"Give me your advice," she said. She pressed her red lips together; her
face was bent upon him as though she watched.

"But," he stammered, "you tell me all the time, a dozen times a day,
that I'm badly trained. What good's my advice?"

"_Are_ you badly trained?"

"I suppose so."

"