Chapter 17

“I’m sorry about that,” I said, remembering Knutsson’s slaughtered sheep. Although she obviously could not understand my words, I think she realized the contriteness of my attitude, for I wanted her neither to hate me nor to be afraid of me. It was, I suppose, so many long months in the wilderness, so many nights and days without the softening vision of a woman along our trails, that threw an unnatural glamour about that tense small figure with the heavy bands of gold on wrists and ankles and the yellow gleam of go…