I stepped back just in
time, and went on hunting for firewood again, half laughing at the odd
fancies that crowded so thickly into my mind and cast their spell upon me.
I recalled the Swede's remark about moving on next day, and I was just
thinking that I fully agreed with him, when I turned with a start and saw
the subject of my thoughts standing immediately in front of me. He was
quite close. The roar of the elements had covered his approach.
II
"You've been gone so long," he shouted above the wind, "I thought something
must have happened to you."
But there was that in his tone, and a certain look in his face as well,
that conveyed to me more than his usual words, and in a flash I understood
the real reason for his coming. It was because the spell of the place had
entered his soul too, and he did not like being alone.
"River still rising," he cried, pointing to the flood in the moonlight,
"and the wind's simply awful."
He always said the same things, but it was the cry for companionship that
gave the real importance to his words.
"Lucky," I cried back, "our tent's in the hollow. I think it'll hold all
right." I added something about the difficulty of finding wood, in order to
explain my absence, but the wind caught my words and flung them across the
river, so that he did not hear, but just looked at me through the branches,
nodding his head.
"Lucky if we get away without disaster!" he shouted, or words to that
effect; and I remember feeling half angry with him for putting the thought
into words, for it was exactly what I felt myself.
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