VIII

When Oskar Hedin left the store at the closing hour, he went directly to his hotel, bolted a hasty luncheon, slipped into outdoor togs and a half hour later was silently threading an old log-trail that bit deep into the jack-pines.  Mile after mile he glided smoothly along that silent winding white lane, his skis making no sound in the soft, deep snow.

Just beyond a swamp, in the centre of a wide clearing, surrounded upon three sides by the encroaching jack-pines and poplars, and upon the fourth by a broad bend of the river, Hedin removed his skis and seated himself upon a rotting log of a tumbled-down cabin, there to think.

So, that’s why she wanted a new coat?  She was going out for the evening with Wentworth.  And she invited Wentworth to go tobogganing, on this particular afternoon of all others, when he had intended to whisper in her ear, as the toboggan flew down the steep grade, the thing that had been uppermost in his mind for a year.  And she had asked her father to give him a job.  Of course, what could be simpler?  A man can manage to exist, somehow, without a job—­but with two a job is essential.

He laughed, a short, hard laugh that ended in a sneer.  Well, he had been a fool—­that’s all.  He had served her purpose, had been the poor dupe upon whom she had practised her wiles, a plaything, to be lightly tossed aside for a new toy.  Some day, too late perhaps, she would see her mistake, and then she would suffer, even as he was suffering now—­but, no, to suffer one must first love, and woman had not the capacity to love.  “To hell with them!” he cried aloud.  “To hell with my tame job!  And to hell with Terrace City, and with the civilization that calls a man from the wild places and sets him to selling women baubles to deck themselves out in.”

The jack-pine shadows reached far into the clearing as Oskar fastened on his skis and headed back along the tote-road.  It was not too late—­he was only twenty-five.  He, too, would live like a man, would go into the North, and henceforth only the outlands should know him.  He would resign Monday morning.  The thought caused a pang of regret at parting with McNabb.

Darkness found him still upon the tote-road.  He emerged from the jack-pines and paused at the long smooth hill, as was his wont, to look down upon the brilliant lights of Terrace City.  His momentum carried him skimming across a flat meadow, and he slowed to a stand at the very end of the main street where, in the white glare of an arc light he removed his skis, and stepped onto the sidewalk.

Well, he would see her once more, arrayed in the coat of matched sable—­and he would carry the picture with him to far places where the stars winked cold in the night sky.

Fully twenty minutes before time for the curtain Hedin was in his place, tenth row on the middle aisle, eagerly scanning the patrons as they were ushered to their seats.  The theatre boasted only two boxes, set just above the stage level, and Elsie Campbell had engaged them both.