"Then Macdonald will keep your team, and I will drive you home," said Witham. "Mine are the best horses at Silverdale, and I fancy we will need all their strength."

Miss Barrington looked up sharply. There had been a little ring in Witham's voice, but there was also a solicitude in his face which almost astonished her, and when Macdonald urged her to comply she rose leisurely.

"I will be ready in ten minutes," she said.

Witham waited at least twenty, very impatiently, but when at last the girl appeared, handed her with quiet deference into the sleigh, and then took his place, as far as the dimensions of the vehicle permitted, apart from her. Once he fancied she noticed it with faint amus.e.m.e.nt, but the horses knew what was coming, and it was only when he pulled them up to a trot again on the slope of a rise that he found speech convenient.

"I am glad we are alone, though I feel a little diffidence in asking a favour of you, because unfortunately when I venture to recommend anything you usually set yourself against it," he said. "This is, in the language of this country, tolerably straight."

Maud Barrington laughed. "I could find no fault with it on the score of ambiguity."

"Well," said Witham, "I believe your uncle is going to sell wheat for you, and let a good deal of your land go out of cultivation. Now, as you perhaps do not know, the laws which govern the markets are very simple and almost immutable, but the trouble is that a good many people do not understand their application."

"You apparently consider yourself an exception," said the girl.

Witham nodded. "I do just now. Still, I do not wish to talk about myself. You see, the people back there in Europe must be fed, and the latest news from wheat-growing countries does not promise more than an average crop, while half the faint-hearted farmers here are not going to sow much this year. Therefore when the demand comes for Western wheat there will be little to sell."

"But how is it that you alone see this? Isn't it a trifle egotistical?"

Witham laughed. "Can't we leave my virtues, or the reverse, out of the question? I feel that I am right, and want you to dissuade your uncle.

It would be even better if, when I return to Winnipeg, you would empower me to buy wheat for you."

Maud Barrington looked at him curiously. "I am a little perplexed as to why you should wish me to."

"No doubt," said Witham. "Still, is there any reason why I should be debarred the usual privilege of taking an interest in my neighbour's affairs?"

"No," said the girl slowly. "But can you not see that it is out of the question that I should entrust you with this commission?"

Witham's hands closed on the reins, and his face grew a trifle grim as he said, "From the point of view you evidently take, I presume it is."

A flush of crimson suffused the girl's cheeks. "I never meant that, and I can scarcely forgive you for fancying I did. Of course I could trust you with--you have made me use the word--the dollars, but you must realize that I could not do anything in public opposition to my uncle's opinion."

Witham was sensible of a great relief, but it did not appear advisable to show it. "There are so many things you apparently find it difficult to forgive me--and we will let this one pa.s.s," he said. "Still, I cannot help thinking that Colonel Barrington will have a good deal to answer for."

Maud Barrington made no answer, but she was sensible of a respect which appeared quite unwarranted for the dryly-spoken man who, though she guessed her words stung him now and then, bore them without wincing. While she sat silent, shivering under her furs, darkness crept down. The smoky cloud dropped lower, the horizon closed in as the grey obscurity rolled up to meet them across a rapidly-narrowing strip of snow. Then she could scarcely see the horses, and the m.u.f.fled drumming of their hoofs was lost in a doleful wail of wind. It also seemed to her that the cold, which was already almost insupportable, suddenly increased, as it not infrequently does in that country before the snow. Then a white powder was whirled into her face, filling her eyes and searing the skin, while, when she could see anything again, the horses were plunging at a gallop through a filmy haze, and Witham, whitened all over, leaned forward with lowered head hurling hoa.r.s.e encouragement at them. His voice reached her fitfully through the roar of wind, until sight and hearing were lost alike as the white haze closed about them, and it was not until the wild gust had pa.s.sed she heard him again.

He was apparently shouting, "Come nearer."

Maud Barrington was not sure whether she obeyed him or he seized and drew her towards him. She, however, felt the furs piled high about her neck and that there was an arm round her shoulder, and for a moment was sensible of an almost overwhelming revulsion from the contact. She was proud and very dainty, and fancied she knew what this man had been, while now she was drawn in to his side, and felt her chilled blood respond to the warmth of his body. Indeed, she grew suddenly hot to the neck, and felt that henceforward she could never forgive him or herself, but the mood pa.s.sed almost as swiftly, for again the awful blast shrieked about them and she only remembered her companion's humanity as the differences of s.e.x and character vanished under that destroying cold. They were no longer man and woman, but only beings of flesh and blood, clinging desperately to the life that was in them, for the first rush of the Western snowstorm has more than a physical effect, and man exposed to its fury loses all but his animal instincts in the primitive struggle with the elements.

Then, while the snow folded them closely in its white embrace during a lull, the girl recovered herself, and her strained voice was faintly audible.

"This is my fault; why don't you tell me so?" she said.

A hoa.r.s.e laugh seemed to issue from the whitened object beside her, and she was drawn closer to it again. "We needn't go into that just now. You have one thing to do, and that is to keep warm."

One of the horses stumbled, the grasp that was around her became relaxed and she heard the swish of the whip followed by hoa.r.s.e expletives, and did not resent it. The man, it seemed, was fighting for her life as well as his own, and even brutal virility was necessary. After that there was a s.p.a.ce of oblivion, while the storm raged about them, until, when the wind fell a trifle, it became evident that the horses had left the trail.

"You are off the track, and will never make the Grange unless you find it!" she said.

Witham seemed to nod. "We are not going there," he said, and if he added anything, it was lost in the scream of a returning gust.

Again Maud Barrington's reason rea.s.serted itself, and remembering the man's history she became sensible of a curious dismay, but it also pa.s.sed, and left her with the vague realization that he and she were actuated alike only by the desire to escape extinction. Presently she became sensible that the sleigh had stopped beside a formless mound of white and the man was shaking her.

"Hold those furs about you while I lift you down," he said.

She did his bidding, and did not shrink when she felt his arms about her, while next moment she was standing knee-deep in the snow and the man shouting something she did not catch. Team and sleigh seemed to vanish, and she saw her companion dimly for a moment before he was lost in the sliding whiteness too. Then a horrible fear came upon her.

It seemed a very long while before he reappeared, and thrust her in through what seemed to be a door. Then there was another waiting before the light of a lamp blinked out, and she saw that she was standing in a little log-walled room with bare floor and a few trusses of straw in a corner. There was also a rusty stove, and a very small pile of billets beside it. Witham, who had closed the door, stood looking at them with a curious expression.

"Where is the team?" she gasped.

"Heading for a birch bluff or Silverdale, though I scarcely think they will get there," said the man. "I have never stopped here, and it wasn't astonishing they fancied the place a pile of snow. While I was getting the furs out they slipped away from me."

Miss Barrington now knew where they were. The shanty was used by the remoter settlers as a half-way house where they slept occasionally on their long journey to the railroad, and as there was a birch bluff not far away, it was the rule that whoever occupied it should replace the fuel he had consumed. The last man had, however, not been liberal.

"But what are we to do?" she asked, with a little gasp of dismay.

"Stay here until the morning," said Witham quietly. "Unfortunately I can't even spare you my company. The stable has fallen in, and it would be death to stand outside, you see. In the meanwhile, pull out some of the straw and put it in the stove."

"Can you not do that?" asked Miss Barrington, feeling that she must commence at once, if she was to keep this man at a befitting distance.

Witham laughed. "Oh, yes, but you will freeze if you stand still, and these billets require splitting. Still, if you have special objections to doing what I ask you, you can walk up and down rapidly."

The girl glanced at him a moment, and then lowered her eyes. "Of course I was wrong! Do you wish to hear that I am sorry?"

Witham, answering nothing, swung an axe round his head, and the girl, kneeling beside the stove, noticed the sinewy suppleness of his frame and the precision with which the heavy blade cleft the billets. The axe, she knew, is by no means an easy tool to handle. At last the red flame crackled, and though she had not intended the question to be malicious, there was a faint trace of irony in her voice as she asked, "Is there any other thing you wish me to do?"

Witham flung two bundles of straw down beside the stove, and stood looking at her gravely. "Yes," he said. "I want you to sit down and let me wrap this sleigh robe about you."

The girl submitted, and did not shrink from his touch visibly when he drew the fur robe about her shoulders and packed the end of it round her feet. Still, there was a faint warmth in her face, and she was grateful for his unconcernedness.

"Fate or fortune has placed me in charge of you until to-morrow, and if the position is distasteful to you it is not my fault," he said.

"Still, I feel the responsibility, and it would be a little less difficult if you could accept the fact tacitly."

Maud Barrington would not have shivered if she could have avoided it, but the cold was too great for her, and she did not know whether she was vexed or pleased at the gleam of compa.s.sion in the man's grey eyes. It was more eloquent than anything of the kind she had ever seen, but it had gone and he was only quietly deferent when she glanced at him again.

"I will endeavour to be good," she said, and then flushed with annoyance at the adjective. Half-dazed by the cold as she was, she could not think of a more suitable one. Witham, however, retained his gravity.

"Now, Macdonald gave you no supper, and he has dinner at noon," he said. "I brought some eatables along, and you must make the best meal you can."

He opened a packet, and laid it, with a little silver flask, upon her knee.

"I cannot eat all this--and it is raw spirit," said Maud Barrington.

Witham laughed. "Are you not forgetting your promise? Still, we will melt a little snow into the cup."

An icy gust swept in when he opened the door, and it was only by a strenuous effort he closed it again, while, when he came back panting with the top of the flask a little colour crept into Maud Barrington's face. "I am sorry," she said. "That at least is your due."