"
"What is it?" Fanny demanded.
"The raccoon dogs," the boy paused at the door. "A lot of the furnacemen
and woodcutters from round about are hunting."
Fanny Gilkan leaned across the table to Howat, her face glowing with
interest. "Come ahead," she urged; "we can do this anyhow. I like to
hear the dogs yelping, and follow them through the night. You can bring
your gun, I'll leave mine back, and perhaps we'll get something really
big."
Howat himself responded thoroughly to such an expedition; to the mystery
of the primitive woods, doubly withdrawn in the dark; the calls of the
others, near or far, or completely lost in a silence of stars; the still
immensity of a land unguessed, mythical--endless trees, endless
mountains, endless rivers with their headwaters buried in arctic
countries beyond human experience, and emptying into the miraculous blue
and gilded seas of the tropics.
Fanny Gilkan would follow the dogs closely, too, with infinite swing
and zest. She knew the country better than himself, better almost than
any one else at the Furnace. He stirred at her urgency, and she caught
his arm, dragging him from behind the table. She tied a linsey-woolsey
jacket by its arms about her waist, and put out the candles.
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