NN issued out of her tent, the next morning, braced to meet Chako's renewed derision; but his mood had changed again. Apparently all recollection of the day before had been sponged out, and their quarrel and Ann's lamentable accident were alike forgotten. Perhaps laughter had purged his spleen. At any rate, he greeted her with careless good humor.
He was shaving. The sight gave Ann a little shock. She had seen pictures of men shaving, and had peeped into barber shops, but she had never been actually present at the operation. But why not, she asked herself? Chako was more sensible than she, she thought, because he took everything as a matter of course.
Fully dressed except for his outer shirt, he was squatting cross-legged in the grass, with his little mirror propped up on the grub box in front of him. The white singlet clung to his swelling breast like an outer skin. His arms were faintly golden with old sunburn. The hair stood out from his head in a wild, bright tangle.
An exclamation escaped him.
“Cut myself again! That damned mole! Got any court-plaster, Maury?”
“Yes,” said Ann.
She got out her indispensable little dressing case. Chako squatted on his heels, and Ann knelt beside him. This brought their heads on a level. Ann's heart beat like a bird's. Chako's freshly shaven cheek was peachy. Upon the point of his jaw there was a ruby drop that stirred a strange emotion in Ann. She hastily dried it with a towel, put the little square of court-plaster on her tongue tip, and applied it with a gesture that was like a blessing. She pressed it with a velvet finger tip.
“There, I think that will stick,” she said anxiously.
Chako suddenly turned his head. His eyes were dancing with the zest of earth, his lips turned up mockingly.
“Kiss!” he murmured.
Ann darted her head back as if he had stung her. Chako jumped up with a gay laugh, and, snatching up towel and shirt, ran down to the water's edge. A sound of splashing was heard.
He came back presently with all the kinks nicely dragged out of his hair, and with his shirt on. Ann was moving blindly around the fire, still in a very tumult of emotion. Chako appeared to have forgotten the incident.
Ann gave him a wide berth. A hot little flame of resentment scorched her breast.
“It means nothing to him—nothing!” she thought.
Chako always had an eye cocked toward the sky for weather.
“South wind to-day,” he announced. “We'll be able to sit back and sail up the lake. You watch the coffeepot, Maury, while I rig a sail.”
He used two of the little tent poles and one of his red blankets. The sail made a gay splash of color in the scene.
Presently he stuck his head up over the edge of the bank.
“Hey, Maury! Fetch me that coil of tracking line yonder.”
Ann looked at him without speaking.
Chako looked away across the river; he actually blushed.
“Please,” he mumbled.
Ah, how Ann's breast warmed over him! The dear, the dear! She forgave him everything on the spot. He had learned his lesson. He could learn a lesson! She flew to get him the tracking line. She could have hugged him.
When they embarked, Ann sat in the bottom of the canoe, with her back against the mast, facing astern. She held the sheet. Chako perched on the stern seat, steering with a paddle. They sailed out on the lake.
“I feel great!” Chako announced.
He looked it. But a sense of well-being only made him harder, Ann thought bitterly. There was still no humanity in him. His keen gaze was never still; it embraced the sky, the shore line, the sail, but never rested on her. His unawareness of her made her feel like nothing at all in the bottom of the boat. Sometimes Ann felt as if he must be aware of his cruel power over her, and was deliberately exerting it; but in her heart she knew that it was his unconsciousness, his spontaneity, that constituted his power.
The old songs rolled forth.
{ { block center|max-width=75%|{ { fine block|“Tom Pearse, Tom Pearse, lend me your gray mare; All along, down along, out along lee! For I want for to go to Widdicombe Fair With Bill Brewer, Dan Stewer, Peter Gurney, Peter Davey, Dan'l Whidden, Harry Hawk, Uncle Tom Cobleigh and all; Uncle Tom Cobleigh and all!”
“Where did you learn those old songs?” asked Ann.
“When I first came north, I batched with an old sourdough. He used to sing 'em,” said Chako. “He hadn't learned any new ones in fifty years, I guess. Those old ones roll out better than the ragtime the girls sing in the settlement.”
“Rather!” said Ann.
“Here's a funny one,” said Chako.