Motion Picture Magazine (Aug 1918-Jan 1919)

child who has been harmed. He liked Marston. Seemed to sense something in the lad that comforted him. Now and again he'd drop in. One night he was leavin' just as Mears came in. There was a piece of pork lyin' on the table. Pat sneaked it, and in an instant Mears would have been upon him if Marston hadn't interfered. 'Let be!' he snapped, and Gerry gave sort of a grateful whine and got out. Afterward Marston told Mears something of what had happened to Gerry back in the last stampede. A raw little yarn, common enough up there . . . just his claim jumped . . . everything he had stolen from him ... an Indian trick practiced on him to make him spit up his secret . . . when they had done with him . . . nothing left . . . not even his wits. It made Mears kind of sick. He never spoke again when Pat came in and did his pitiful stealing. He was only gettin' even — in his way. Marston knew that. Marston had a heart, and he always understood. He even understood himself, and had come up past the last circle to fight a fight alone. "The night had been on us a month when the Girl came. We were gettin' supper one night, Burke and me, when we heard a peculiar moaning sound . . . very soft and complainin'. We pricked up our ears. 'What's that?' we said, together like. There hadn't been a sound up there for Weeks, save only the soft and stealthy slippin' of the snow when it banked too high. Not even a star had fallen. Not even a lone wolf called. Silence . . . stillness . . . void. Then this moanin' . . . soft and half afraid. 'Somethin',' I whispered, in my lockedup throat, 'hurt . . . ' Burke Marston straightened up, and a look of wonder lit his eyes. 'A woman,' he said, 'a woman . . .a girl!' "Mears laughed. 'Been at the cache again, I see,' he V said. "Marston didn't say anything. He had a habit of not saying anything — much — to Mears. He just got into his trappings and went out. I had the funniest feeling when he went out that night — or was it day? Somehow, you sorter lose track up there on the top o' the world — it's one of the worst dangers you run — losing track. I felt that old Burke was going forth to — I didn't exactly know what — but that cry, soft as it was, that cry out there — in the Nowhere — from the Nowhere — it got me: — under my skin. "When he came back he was carrying something — something all swaddled in furs and fur leggins, and rigid and as still as the void outside. Mears and I just looked with our eyes. 'It's a . . . girl . . .' said Marston, and he said it all stilly and scary, like as if he was in church whisperin' a Te Deum. 'It's a . . . girl . . .'he repeated, and I was awful afraid that he was going to cry. "He laid her on a" bunk we didn't use, gentle as a mother might. And then he stripped off her caked leggins and her woolly cap and her leather coat, and covered her up all sort and came away. Somehow we didn't speak to him. We ate our supper and no one said a word. Now and again I'd catch Mears stealin' a. sly glance over at the bunk where the Girl lay, but when he caught Burke's eyes on him he'd get a sickly yellow and look at his plate. After supper Burke got a piece o'old canvas we had and tacked up a curtain in front of the Girl's bunk. That night he didn't go to sleep. Just sat all night and watched . . . and watched ... he didn't pray . . . that is, not with his mouth. When morning came the Girl opened her eyes. Her eyes ! Pardner, He looked— but what he looked for was not there. It wasn't there .59, PAfil