Gretchen seemed in a trance, and not until Ugruk had taken a quantity of the pemmican and sat down on the floor to eat it, did she waken and stir. Then she came creeping up to Angus, as if she were stalking him, and peered into his face. “Oh, you fool!” she cried bitterly.
“Maybe so. But it’s the good Lord’s fault, not mine.”
“If you had waited awhile, and given him one meal, he would have tried to seize me.” She was half hysterical with rage and fear. “Then you’d have had an excuse to kill him.”
“Ye told me not to gi’ him even a bite. Besides—I dinna want an excuse to kill him. Ye are na talking sense, Gretchen. He is my brother.”
“He is an Eskimo. Your life is worth ten of his. And now you’ve thrown your life away for a crazy ideal, and a promise made to a dead man. Well, it’s not my
