Marie led us through river and swamps, through forest and ravine, through all the naked loneliness of the fjeld, with never a scrap of hesitation, never more than a brief glance round when we headed a rise. She knew the wilderness as a hunting-man may know a country here at home. And she led us to the rest-hut which Johann had described, with never a deviation from the bee-line except where the corrugation of the country made curves a necessity.
Pat, with more stubble and more grin, and Pedr, with a smile if possible more beautiful than ever, were at the door to welcome us. Inside, our solid goods were laid out in an orderly row; the brown canvas sacks and the chronically sodden blankets were hung up on the drying-beam above the fire; and the room was filled with a delicious mosquito-proof smoke. It felt quite like a home-coming.
We inducted Marie to a seat on a pile of springy birch-boughs, which the excellent Pat had brought in to form his own bed, and we set before her of our best, which did not amount to much. I think it was the first time she had ever tasted larks in aspic, and unless I am much mistaken she will not greatly regret if it was the last. One thing she did appreciate though, and that was the _Windward's_ slop-chest tobacco. She saw the black cake pass from hand to hand; she drew her knife from its sheath and held out eager fingers; and when she had shredded up a sufficiency and got her iron-lined wooden pipe in full blast, it was a pleasant sight to see her. The smoke exuded from her lips and nostrils in sleek, gray clouds, and the wrinkles in her grimy, weather-beaten little face wreathed themselves into a smile of ecstatic contentment.
The question of sleeping-quarters obtruded itself. We had an acquaintance with the Lapp's casual way of regarding such matters, but we still had (from the conventions of our upbringing) some small spasm of hesitation in offering a spinster guest a shake-down on the floor of a hut containing five full-grown men. We discussed the advisability of turning out ourselves and camping elsewhere with the carriers, and leaving Marie in the orthodox virgin seclusion. But she took the matter out of our hands very simply. She said she must be getting back to her endless work with the deer-pack. She had sat down for an hour on Pat's couch of birch-shoots, and this seemed all the rest she cared for after her gentle forty-mile stroll. She shook hands with us limply all round, and then went into the sunny midnight outside. Hayter and I instinctively took off our caps, but I am afraid she did not know it was intended as a piece of courtesy, because she doubled up in a fit of merriment by way of response. And then Johann went out and walked by her side till they came to the edge of the scrub willows, and I think she appreciated Johann's attentions best, because she understood them more. They stopped there and made their further adieux, and then the squat little figure waved its hand for the last time, and disappeared in the cover, and Johann stood stupidly staring at the place where she had vanished.