After breakfast they went out and tramped together the little path of hard-trodden snow in front of the house. She broached the prospect of a rescue or the chances of escape.

"We shall soon be out of food, and, anyhow, we can't stay here all winter," she suggested with a tremulous little laugh.

"You are naturally very tired of it already," he hazarded.

"It has been the experience of my life. I shall fence it off from all the days that have pa.s.sed and all that are to come," she made answer vividly.

Their eyes met, but only for an instant.

"I am glad," he said quietly.

He began, then, to tell her what he must do, but at the first word of it she broke out in protest.

"No--no--no! We shall stay together. If you go I am going, too."

"I wish you could, but it is not possible. You could never get there.

The snow is too soft and heavy for wading and not firm enough to bear your weight."

"But you will have to wade."

"I am stronger than you, lieutenant."

"I know, but----" She broke down and confessed her terror. "Would you leave me here--alone--with all this snow Oh, I couldn't stay--I couldn't."

"It's the only way," he said steadily. Every fiber in him rebelled at leaving her here to face peril alone, but his reason overrode the desire and rebellion that were hot within him. He must think first of her ultimate safety, and this lay in getting her away from here at the first chance.

Tears splashed down from the big eyes. "I didn't think you would leave me here alone. With you I don't mind it, but-- Oh, I should die if I stayed alone."

"Only for twenty-four hours. Perhaps less. I shouldn't think of it if it weren't necessary."

"Take me with you. I am strong. You don't know how strong I am. I promise to keep up with you. Please!"

He shook his head. "I would take you with me if I could. You know that.

But it's a man's fight. I shall have to stand up to it hour after hour till I reach Yesler's ranch. I shall get through, but it would not be possible for you to make it."

"And if you don't get through?"

He refused to consider that contingency. "But I shall. You may look to see me back with help by this time to-morrow morning."

"I'm not afraid with you. But if you go away Oh, I can't stand it. You don't know--you don't know." She buried her face in her hands.

He had to swallow down his sympathy before he went on. "Yes, I know.

But you must be brave. You must think of every minute as being one nearer to the time of my return."

"You will think me a dreadful coward, and I am. But I can't help it. I AM afraid to stay alone. There's nothing in the world but mountains of snow. They are horrible--like death--except when you are here."

Her child eyes coaxed him to stay. The mad longing was in him to kiss the rosy little mouth with the queer alluring droop to its corners. It was a strange thing how, with that arched twist to her eyebrows and with that smile which came and went like sunshine in her eyes, she toppled his lifelong creed. The cardinal tenet of his faith had been a belief in strength. He had first been drawn to Virginia by reason of her pluck and her power. Yet this child's very weakness was her fountain of strength. She cried out with pain, and he counted it an a.s.set of virtue in her. She acknowledged herself a coward, and his heart went out to her because of it. The battle a.s.signments of life were not for the soft curves and shy winsomeness of this dainty lamb.

"You will be brave. I expect you to be brave, lieutenant." Words of love and comfort were crowding to his brain, but he would not let them out.

"How long will you be gone?" she sobbed.

"I may possibly get back before midnight, but you mustn't begin to expect me until to-morrow morning, perhaps not till to-morrow afternoon."

"Oh, I couldn't--I couldn't stay here at night alone. Don't go, please.

I'll not get hungry, truly I won't, and to-morrow they will find us."

He rose, his face working. "I MUST go, child. It's the thing to do. I wish to Heaven it weren't. You must think of yourself as quite safe here. You ARE safe. Don't make it hard for me to go, dear."

"I AM a coward. But I can't help it. There is so much snow--and the mountains are so big." She tried valiantly to crush down her sobs. "But go. I'll--I'll not be afraid."

He buried her little hands in his two big ones and looked deep into her eyes. "Every minute of the time I am away from you I shall be with you in spirit. You'll not be alone any minute of the day or night. Whether you are awake or asleep I shall be with you."

"I'll try to remember that," she answered, smiling up at him but with a trembling lip.

She put him up some lunch while he made his simple preparations. To the end of the trench she walked with him, neither of them saying a word.

The moment of parting had come.

She looked up at him with a crooked wavering little smile. She wanted to be brave, but she could not trust herself to say a word.

"Remember, dear. I am not leaving you. My body has gone on an errand.

That is all."

Just now she found small comfort in this sophistry, but she did not tell him so.

"I--I'll remember." She gulped down a sob and still smiled through the mist that filmed her sight.

In his face she could see how much he was moved at her distress. Always a creature of impulse, one mastered her now, the need to let her weakness rest on his strength. Her arms slipped quickly round his neck and her head lay buried on his shoulder. He held her tight, eyes shining, the desire of her held in leash behind set teeth, the while sobs shook her soft round body in gusts.

"My lamb--my sweet precious lamb," she heard him murmur in anguish.

From some deep s.e.x trait it comforted her that he suffered. With the mother instinct she began to regain control of herself that she might help him.

"It will not be for long," she a.s.sured him. "And every step of your way I shall pray for, your safety," she whispered.

He held her at arm's length while his gaze devoured her, then silently he wheeled away and plunged waist deep into the drifts. As long as he was in sight he saw her standing there, waving her handkerchief to him in encouragement. Her slight, dark figure, outlined against the snow, was the last thing his eyes fell upon before he turned a corner of the gulch and dropped downward toward the plains.

But when he was surely gone, after one fearful look at the white sea which encompa.s.sed her, the girl fled to the cabin, slammed the door after her, and flung herself on the bed to weep out her lonely terror in an ecstasy of tears. She had spent the first violence of her grief, and was sitting crouched on the rug before the open fire when the sound of a footstep, crunching the snow, startled her. The door opened, to let in the man who had just left her.

"You are back--already," she cried, her tear? stained face lifted toward him.

"Yes," he smiled' from the doorway. "Come here, little partner."

And when she had obediently joined him her eye followed his finger up the mountain-trail to a bend round which men and horses were coming.

"It's a relief-party," he said, and caught up his field-gla.s.ses to look them over more certainly. Two men on horseback, leading a third animal, were breaking a way down the trail, black spots against the background of white. "I guess Fort Salvation's about to be relieved," he added grimly, following the party through the gla.s.ses.

She touched the back of his hand with a finger. "Are you glad?" she asked softly.