The Silent Places by Steward Edward White

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"That's good. I hope you've had a successful trip."

"Yes," answered Sam. The woodsman stood there a little awkwardly,
wishing to be polite, not sure as to whether they should now go without
further dismissal.

"See, Miss Virginia," hesitated Sam, to fill in the pause, "I have your
handkerchief yet."

"I'm glad you kept it, Sam," replied the young girl; "and have you
yours, Dick?"

And suddenly to Dick the contrast between this reality and that other
came home with the vividness of a picture. He saw again the snow-swept
plain, the wavering shapes of illusion, the mock suns dancing in unholy
revel. The colour of the North burned before his eyes; a madness of the
North unsealed his lips.

"I used it to cover a dead girl's face," he replied, bluntly.

The story had been as gray as a report of statistics,--so many places
visited, so much time consumed. The men smoking cigars, lounging on
cushioned seats in the tepid summer air, had listened to it unimpressed,
as one listens to the reading of minutes of a gathering long past. This
simple sentenced breathed into it life. The magnitude of the undertaking
sprang up across the horizon of their comprehension. They saw between
the mile-post markings of Sam Bolton's dry statements of fact, glimpses
of vague, mysterious, and terrible deeds, indistinct, wonderful. The two
before them loomed big in the symbolism of the wide world of men's
endurance and determination and courage.

The darkness swallowed them before the group on the veranda had caught
its breath. In a moment the voices about the cannon raised in greeting.
A swift play of question and answer shot back and forth. "Out all the
year?" "Where? Kabinikagam? Oh, yes, east of Brunswick Lake." "Good
trip?" "That's right." "Glad of it." Then the clamour rose, many
beseeching, one refusing. The year was done. These men had done a mighty
deed, and yet a few careless answers were all they had to tell of it.
The group, satisfied, were begging another song. And so, in a moment,
just as a year before, Dick's rich, husky baritone raised in the words
of the old melody. The circle was closed.

"_There was an old darky, and his name was Uncle Ned,
And he lived long ago, long ago--_"

The night hushed to silence. Even the wolves were still, and the
_giddes_ down at the Indian camp ceased their endless quarrelling.
Dick's voice had all the world to itself. The men on the Factory veranda
smoked, the disks of their cigars dulling and glowing. Galen Albret,
inscrutable, grim, brooded his unguessable thoughts. Virginia, in the
doorway, rested her head pensively against one arm outstretched against
the lintel.

"_For there's no more work for poor old Ned,
He's gone where the good darkies go_."

The song finished. There succeeded the great compliment of quiet.

To Virginia it was given to speak the concluding word of this episode.
She sighed, stretching out her arms.

"'The greatness of my people,'" she quoted softly.

THE END

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