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It was the usual thaw which, in early February, precedes the comingof the big
snows.
The cold invigorates you and itparalyses me.
The appeal in Galliards
voice was so sincere that his question hadno tinge of brusqueness. All his life
he had been mixedup in great affairs.
It looksas if that tribe was fixed to be
cleaned out before spring. He sawthe Indians as tenuous growths, fungi which
had no hold on thesoil. The beasts were wonderfully tractable, as ifthey knew
that the treatment was for their good. Under its stress trees cracked with a
sound like machine-guns. But againmy impression is that they were looking for
the worst.
It must be a wonderful thing to have an undivided mind.
The camp was
madein an open place away from the dripping trees. Drowsinesshad fled from him,
and his brain was racing like a flywheel.
Therefore Galliard had assumed a
newmeaning. The Gaillard family for generations had felt it.
Tohis surprise the
violent weather, instead of numbing him, had putlife into his veins.
He had
aglimpse, too, of Johnny, who looked tired and anxious.
We white folkcan treat
the poor devils bodies, but we dont seem able to doanything for their
minds.
Awhistle from Galliard halted the sledges. Perhaps I shouldhave been
more candid with you.
He had aglimpse, too, of Johnny, who looked tired and
anxious. You go huntingwith Lew as if you were bred to it.
They did not
talkabout it, for they thought I would not live to see it.
Likebrave men they
had gone out to wrestle with it, and had notreturned. If a chief dies they
mourn forhim, sittin on their rumps, till theyre pretty well deadthemselves.
His thoughts had been dwelling on his reunion with friends.
A few days earlier
one of thecamp kettles was found to be leaking.
Who was he to decide on a
thingwholly outside his world?
You have a body that can defy the
elements.
Leithen was in the habit ofwaking for a minute or two several times
in the night.
I havent the strength for it, and Iwould only be an encumbrance.
His breath was troubling him again, and hislegs had a horrid propensity to
buckle under him.
As for Galliard, he was neither dejected norexalted, but he
seemed to have much to think about.
My father is dead, he said, and slipped
back into the dusk. Its a blight that comes on em every nowand then, like the
rabbit sickness. Under its stress trees cracked with a sound like machine-guns.
They existed in sufferance; the North had only to tightenits grip and they
would disappear. He wonderedwhat thoughts this new situation had stirred in
that subtle anddistracted brain.
Compared to hiscompanions Leithen suddenly saw
himself founded solidly like anoak.
Wed have had to bury ourselves all day in a
hole. Leithen asked Johnny what he thought the temperaturemight be.
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