II
It was deep moonless night when Alice woke with a start. For a few moments she lay wondering what had roused her—then a bright light flashed and her companion screamed.
"Who's there!" demanded the girl.
In that instant flare she saw a man's face, young, smooth, with dark eyes gleaming beneath a broad hat. He stood like a figure of bronze while his match was burning, then exclaimed in breathless wonder:
"Great Peter's ghost! a woman!" Finally he stepped forward and looked down upon the white, scared faces as if uncertain of his senses. "Two of them!" he whispered. As he struck his second match he gently asked: "Would you mind saying how you got here?"
Alice spoke first. "We came up with a geological survey. I got hurt and they had to leave us behind."
"Where's your party gone?"
"Up to the glaciers."
"When did they leave?"
"Yesterday morning."
"When do you expect them back?"
"Not for two or three days."
He seemed to ponder a moment. "You say you're hurt? Where?"
"My horse slipped and fell on my foot."
"Wait a minute," he commanded. "I'll rustle a candle. I left one here."
When his form came out of the dark blur behind his candle Alice perceived that he was no ordinary hunter. He was young, alert, and very good-looking, although his face was stern and his mouth bitter. He laid aside his hat as he approached the bunk in which the two women were cowering as mice tremble before a cat. For a full minute he looked down at them, but at last he smiled and said, in a jocular tone:
"You're sure-enough women, I can see that. You'll excuse me—but when a man comes back to a shack in the middle of the night in a place like this and findsa couple of women in a bunk he's likely to think he's seeing pictures in his sleep."
"I can understand that," Alice returned, recovering her self-command. "You're the ranger, I suppose? I told my friend here that you might return."
"I'm mighty glad I did," he said, heartily.
"Thank you; you're very kind."
He bent a keen glare upon her. "What's your name?"
"Alice Mansfield."
"What's your friend's name?"
"Mrs. Adams."
"Are you a missis, too?"
She hesitated. This was impertinent, but then she herself was an intrusive guest. "No," she answered, "I am not married."
"Where are you from?"
"New York City."
"You're a long way from home."
"Yes, I'm feeling that this minute." She drew the coverlet a little closer to her chin.
He quickly read this sign. "You needn't be afraid of me."
"I'm not."
"Yes, you are. You're both all of a tremble and white as two sheep—"
"It isn't that," wailed the girl; "but I've twisted my foot again." Her moan of pain broke the spell that bound Peggy.
"Would you leave, please, for a moment?" she called to the owner of the cabin. "I've got to get up and doctor my patient."
"Sure!" he exclaimed, moving toward the door. "If I can do anything let me know."
As soon as her patient's aching foot was eased Peggy opened the door and peeped out. A faint flare of yellowhad come into the east, and beside the fire, rolled in his blanket, the ranger was sleeping. Frost covered everything and the air was keen.
"He's out there on the cold ground—with only one blanket."
"What a shame! Tell him to come inside—I'm not afraid of him."
"Neither am I—but I don't believe he'll come. It's 'most morning, anyway—perhaps I'd better not disturb him."
"Take one of these quilts to him—that will help some."
Mrs. Adams lifted one of the coverlets and, stealing softly up, was spreading it over the sleeper when he woke with a start, a wild glare of alarm in his eyes.
"Oh, it's you!" he said in relief. Then he added, as he felt the extra cover: "That's mighty white of you. Sure you don't need it?"
"We can spare it. But won't you come inside? I'm sorry we drove you out of your cabin."
"That's all right. I'm used to this. Good night. I'm just about dead for sleep."
Thus dismissed, Peggy went back and lay down beside Alice. "He says he's quite comfortable," she remarked, "and I hope he is, but he doesn't look it."
When she woke again it was broad daylight and Alice was turning restlessly on her hard bed. In the blaze of the sun all the mystery of the night vanished. The incident of the return of the ranger to his cabin was as natural as the coming of dawn.
"He probably makes regular trips through here," said Mrs. Adams.
But the wounded girl silently differed, for she had read in the man's eyes and voice a great deal more thanbelonged to the commonplace character of a forest-ranger. That first vision of his face burned deep.
She had seen on the wall of the station at "the road" the description of a train-robber which tallied closely with this man's general appearance, and the conviction that she was living in the hidden hut of an outlaw grew into a certainty. "I must not let him suspect my discovery," she thought.
Mrs. Adams (who had not read the placard) treated the young fellow as if he were one of the forest wardens, manifesting complete confidence in him.
He deftly helped her about breakfast, and when she invited him into the cabin he came readily, almost eagerly, but he approached Alice's bed with a touch of hesitation, and his glance was softer and his voice gentler as he said:
"Well, how do you stack up this morning?"
"Much better, thank you."
"Must have been a jolt—my coming in last night the way I did?"
"I guess the 'jolt' was mutual. You looked surprised."
He smiled again, a faint, swift half-smile. "Surprised! That's no name for it. For a minute I thought I'd fallen clear through. I hope you didn't get a back-set on account of it."
"Oh no, thank you."
"How many men are in your party?"
"Six, counting the guides."
"Who are the men?"
She named them, and he mused darkly, his eyes on her face. "I reckon I can't wait to make their acquaintance. I'm going on down the Green River to-day. I'm sorry to miss 'em. They must be a nice bunch—to leave two women alone this way."
He ate heartily, but with a nicety which betrayed better training than is usual to men in his position. He remained silent and in deep thought, though his eyes were often on Alice's face.
As he rose to go he said to Peggy: "Would you mind doing up a little grub for me? I don't know just when I'll strike another camp."
"Why, of course! I'll be glad to. Do you have to go?"
"Yes, I must pull out," he replied, and while she was preparing his lunch he rolled a blanket and tied it behind his saddle. At last he re-entered the cabin and, again advancing to Alice's bedside, musingly remarked: "I hate to leave you women here alone. It doesn't seem right. Are you sure your party will return to-night?"
"Either to-night or to-morrow. Professor Ward intends to climb Frémont Peak."
"Then you won't see him for three days." His tone was that of one who communes with himself. "I reckon I'd better stay till to-morrow. I don't like the feeling of the air."
She explained that Gage, one of the guides, would return in case the professor wished to remain in the heights.
"Well, I'll hang around till toward night, anyhow."
He went away for half an hour, and upon his return presented a cleanly shaven face and a much less savage look and bearing. He hovered about the door, apparently listening to Peggy's chatter, but having eyes only for the wounded girl. He seized every slightest excuse to come in, and his voice softened and his manner changed quite as markedly, and at last, while Mrs. Adams was momentarily absent, he abruptly said:
"You are afraid of me; I can see it in your eyes. I know why. You think you know who I am."
"Yes; I'm sure of it."
"What makes you think so?"
"I saw your picture in the railway station."
He regarded her darkly. "Well, I trust you. You won't give me away. I'm not so sure of her." He nodded his head toward the open door.
"What would be the good of my betraying you?"
"Two thousand dollars' reward is a big temptation."
"Nonsense! If I told—it would be for other reasons. If I were to betray your hiding-place it would be because society demands the punishment of criminals."
"I'm not a criminal. I never lifted a cent from any man. I didn't get a dollar from the express company—but I tried—I want you to know, anyway," he continued, "that I wouldn't rob an individual—and I wouldn't have tried this, only I was blind drunk and desperate. I needed cash, and needed it bad."
"What did you need it for?" asked Alice, with a steady look.
He hesitated, and a flush crept across his brown face. His eyes wavered. "Well, you see, the old home was mortgaged—and mother was sick—"
"Oh, bosh! Tell me the truth," she demanded. "The papers said you did it for a girl. Why not be honest with me?"
"I will," he responded, impulsively. "Yes, that's right. I did it for a girl—and afterward, when I was on the run, what did she do? Threw me down! Told everything she knew—the little coyote—and here I am hunted like a wolf on account of it." His face settled into savage lines for a moment. But even as he sat thus another light came into his eyes. His gaze took account of Alice's lips and the delicate, rounded whiteness of her neck and chin. Her like he had never metbefore. The girls he had known giggled; this one smiled. His sweetheart used slang and talked of cattle like a herder, but this woman's voice, so sweet and flexible, made delightfully strange music to his ears.
Peggy's return cut short his confidence, and while she was in the cabin he sat in silence, his eyes always on the girl. He seized every opportunity to speak to her, and each time his voice betrayed increasing longing for her favor.
Mrs. Adams, who had conceived a liking for him, ordered him about as freely as though he were a hired guide, and he made himself useful on the slightest hint.
Alice, on her part, was profoundly interested in him, and whenever her foot would permit her to think of anything else, she pitied him. In the madness of his need, his love, he had committed an act which made all the world his enemy, and yet, as she studied his form and expression, her heart filled with regret. He was very attractive in the Western way, with nothing furtive or evasive about him.
With a directness quite equal to his own she questioned him about his reckless deed.
"Why did you do it?" she exclaimed in despair of his problem.
"I don't know. Hanged if I do, especially now. Since seeing you I think I was crazy—crazy as a loon. If I'd done it for you, now, it wouldn't have been so wild. You're worth a man's life. I'd die for you."
This outburst of passion, so fierce and wild, thrilled the girl; she grew pale with comprehension of his mood. It meant that the sight of her lying there had replaced the old madness with a new one. She was unprepared for this furious outflaming of primitive admiration.
"You mustn't talk like that to me," she protested, as firmly as she could.
He sensed her alarm. "Don't you be scared," he said, gently. "I didn't mean to jar you. I only meant that I didn't know such women as you were in the world. I'd trust you. You've got steady eyes. You'd stick by the man that played his whole soul for you, I can see that. I come of pretty good stock. I reckon that's why you mean so much to me. You get hold of me in a way I can't explain."
"Why don't you fly?" she asked him. "Every minute you spend here increases your danger. The men may return at any moment."
"That's funny, too," he answered, and a look of singular, musing tenderness fell over his face. "I'd rather sit here with you and take my chances."
"But you must not! You are imperiling your life for nothing."
"You're mistaken there. I'm getting something every minute—something that will stay with me all my life. After I leave you it doesn't matter. I came into the hills just naturally, the way the elk does. After that girl reported me, life didn't count. Seeing you has changed me. It matters a whole lot to me this minute, and when I leave you it's stormy sunset for me, sure thing."
Alice gazed upon him with steady eyes, but her bosom rose and fell with the emotion which filled her heart. She debated calling for Mrs. Adams, but there was something in the droop of the outlaw's head, in the tone of his voice, which arrested her. However sudden and frenzied his admiration might seem to others, it was sincere and manly, of that she was persuaded. Nevertheless, she was deeply perturbed.
"I wish you would go," she entreated at last, huskily. "I don't want to see you taken. You have made yourself a criminal and I ought not to find excuses for you, but I do. You're so young. It doesn't seem as if you knew what you were doing. Why don't you ride away into the wild north country and begin a new life somewhere? Can't you escape to Canada?"
He seized eagerly upon her suggestion. "Will you write to me if I do?"
"No, I cannot promise that."
"Why can't I play the ranger here and wait upon you till the men return?"
"Because Professor Ward read that placard with me. He will know you instantly. I wish you'd go. Gage may come at any moment now."
Peggy came in with disturbed look. "It looks like rain," she announced; "the clouds are settling down all over the peaks."
The outlaw sprang up and went to the door. "It looked bad when I got up," he said, as he studied the sky. "I guess we're in for trouble. It may be snow."
His fears were soon realized. Rain began to fall in a thin drizzle, and at four o'clock the first faint flakes of snow began to flash amid the gray veils of the water-drops. The women looked at each other in alarm as the cabin's interior darkened with the ominous shadow of the storm.
"I don't like this a bit," said Peggy, after a while. "This is no mountain squall. I wish the men were here."
"It can't be anything that will last," replied Alice. "It isn't time for the winter snows."
"I know," replied Peggy. "But it's snowing perfectfeather beds now, and no wind. Lucky this forest-ranger is here. The men may get lost in this storm."
"Mercy! Don't speak of such a thing!" exclaimed Alice; but she knew, just the same, that Ward and his party were high in the peaks, far, far above the cabin, and that the storm there would be proportionately fiercer. She listened with growing thankfulness to the outlaw's blows upon the dry limbs of wood that he was chopping for the fire. He was very capable and would not desert them—of that she felt assured.
As the man worked on, the women both came to keen realization of the serious view he took of the storm. He mounted his horse and with his rope dragged great bundles of fagots from the thickets. As he came up, laden with one of his bundles of hard-won fuel, Mrs. Adams asked:
"You don't think it will keep this up, do you?"
"You never can tell what will happen in these mountains. It doesn't generally snow much till later, but you can't bank on anything in this range."
Alice called to him and he stepped inside. "What do you think we'd better do?" she asked.
"There isn't a thing you can do, miss. It's just a case of stick it out. It may let up by sundown; but, as it is, your party can't get back to-night, and if you don't mind I'll camp down just outside the door and keep the fire going."
"You will be a comfort to us," she replied, "but I feel that—that you ought to be going. Isn't it dangerous for you? I mean you will be shut in here."
"If I'm shut in, others are shut out," he answered, with a grim smile. "My job is to keep fire." With these words he returned to his work of breaking limbs from the dead firs.
Alice said: "If it does turn out as this—this ranger says—if the storm keeps up, you mustn't let him sleep out in the snow."
"Of course not," said Peggy. "He can sleep inside. I trust him perfectly—and, besides, you have your revolver."
Alice smiled a little, wondering how Peggy's trust would stand the strain of a fuller knowledge concerning their guardian's stirring career.
III
In spite of her knowledge of the mountains and her natural intrepidity of character the wounded girl's heart sank as the snow and the night closed down over the tiny cabin in its covert of firs. To be on foot in such gloom, in the heart of such a wilderness, was sufficiently awe-inspiring, but to be helpless on a hard bed was to feel the utter inconsequence of humankind. "Suppose the storm blocks the trails so that the men cannot return for a week? What will we do for food?"
Each time she heard the outlaw deliver his burden of wood her heart warmed to him. He was now her comfort and very present stay. "If it should happen that the trails become impassable he alone will stand between us and death," she thought.
The outlaw came in to say, abruptly, "If you weren't hurt and if I weren't in such a hurry I'd rather enjoy this."
He slashed his sombrero against his thigh as he spoke, and Mrs. Adams answered his remark without knowledge of its inner meaning.
"You mustn't think of sleeping outdoors to-night—Mr.—?"
"Smith. I belong to the big family, the Smiths," he promptly replied.
"Why don't you take away that improvised table by the wall and make your bed there?"
"We'll need the table," he responded in a matter-of-fact tone. "I'll just crawl under it. What's giving me most trouble is the question of grub. They didn't leave you any too much, did they?"
"But you can kill game, can't you?" asked Peggy.
"We're pretty high up for elk, and the blue grouse are scarce this year, but I reckon I can jump a deer or a ground-hog. We won't starve, anyway."
Alice perceived in his voice a note of exultation. He was glad of his reprieve, and the thought of being her protector, at least for the night, filled him with joy. She read his mind easily and the romance of this relationship stirred her own heart. The dramatic possibilities of the situation appealed to her. At any moment the men might return and force her into the rôle of defender. On the other hand, they might be confined for days together in this little cabin, and in this enforced intimacy Peggy was sure to discover his secret and his adoration.
The little hovel was filled with the golden light of the blazing fagots, and through the open door Alice could see the feathery crystals falling in a wondrous, glittering curtain across the night. The stream roared in subdued voice as though oppressed by the snows, and the shadow of the fugitive as he moved about the fire had a savage, primal significance which awed the girl into silence.
He was very deft in camp work, and cooked their supper for them almost as well as they could have done it themselves, but he refused to sit at the table withPeggy. "I'll just naturally stick to my slicker, if you don't mind. I'm wet and my hands are too grimy to eat with a lady."
Alice continued to talk to him, always with an under-current of meaning which he easily read and adroitly answered. This care, this double meaning, drew them ever closer in spirit, and the girl took an unaccountable pleasure in it.
After supper he took his seat in the open doorway, and the girl in the bunk looked upon him with softened glance. She had no fear of him now; on the contrary, she mentally leaned upon him. Without him the night would be a terror, the dawn an uncertainty. The brave self-reliance of his spirit appeared in stronger light as she considered that for weeks he had been camping alone, and that but for this accident to her he would be facing this rayless wintry night in solitude.
He began again to question her. "I wish you'd tell me more about yourself," he said, his dark eyes fixed upon her. "I can't understand why any girl like you should come up here with a bunch of rock-sharps. Are you tied up to the professor?"
If Peggy expected her patient to resent this question she must have been surprised, for Alice merely smiled as if at the impertinence of a child.
Mrs. Adams replied: "I can tell you that she is—and a very fortunate girl her friends think her."
He turned to her with unmoved face. "You mean he's got money, I reckon."
"Money and brains and good looks and a fine position."
"That's about the whole works, ain't it—leastwise he will have it all when he gets you. A man like that doesn't deserve what he's got. He's a chump. Do yousuppose I'd go off and leave you alone in a hole like this with a smashed leg? I'd never bring you into such a country, in the first place. And I certainly wouldn't leave you just to study a shack of ice on the mountainside."
"I urged him to go, and, besides, Peggy is mistaken; we're not engaged."
"But he left you! That's what sticks in my crop. He can't be just right in his head. If I had any chance of owning you I'd never let you out of my sight. I wouldn't take a chance. I don't understand these city fellows. I reckon their blood is thinned with ice-water. If I had you I'd be scared every minute for fear of losing you. I'd be as dangerous to touch as a silver-tip. If I had any place to take you I'd steal you right now."
This was more than banter. Even Mrs. Adams perceived the passion quivering beneath his easy, low-toned speech. He was in truth playing with the conception of seizing this half-smiling, half-musing girl whose helpless body was at once a lure and an inspiration. It was perfectly evident that he was profoundly stirred.
And so was Alice. "What," she dared ask herself, "will become of this?"
IV
To the outlaw in the Rocky Mountain cabin in that stormy night it was in every respect the climax of his life. As he sat in the doorway, looking at the fire and over into the storm beyond, he realized that he was shaken by a wild, crude lyric of passion. Here was, to him, the pure emotion of love. All the beautiful things he had ever heard or read of girlhood, of women, of marriage, rose in his mind to make this night an almostintolerable blending of joy and sorrow, hope and despair.
To stay time in its flight, to make this hour his own, to cheat the law, to hold the future at bay—these were the avid desires, the vague resolutions, of his brain. So sure as the day came this happiness would end. To-morrow he must resume his flight, resigning his new-found jewel into the hands of another. To this thought he returned again and again, each time with new adoration for the girl and added fury and hate against his relentless pursuers and himself. He did not spare himself! "Gad! what a fool I've been—and yet, if I had been less a fool I would not be here and I would never have met her." He ended with a glance toward Alice.
Then he arose, closed the door of the cabin, and stood without beside the fire, so that the women might prepare for bed. His first thought of suicide came to him. Why not wait with his love as long as possible—stay till the law's hand was in the air above his head, uplifted to strike, and then, in this last moment, die with this latest, most glorious passion as climax to his career? To flee meant endless fear, torment. To be captured meant defeat, utter and final dismay.
A knock upon the door startled him, and Peggy's voice cut short his meditation. "You can come in now, Mr. Smith," she said.
The broad crystals were still falling thickly and the fire was hissing and spluttering around a huge root which he had rolled upon it. In its light the cabin stood hardly higher than a kennel, and yet it housed the woman whose glance had transformed his world into something mystical. A man of commonplace ancestry would have felt only an animal delight in shelter and warmth, but this youth was stirred to a spiritual exaltation. The girl'sbosom, the rounded beauty of her neck, appealed to him, but so also did the steady candor of her gaze and the sweet courage of her lips. Her helplessness roused his protective instinct, and her words, the sound of her voice, so precise, so alien-sweet, filled him with bitter sadness, and he re-entered the house in such spirit of self-abasement as he had never known before.
He lay down upon the hard floor in silence, his audacity gone, his reckless courage deep-sunk in gloomy foreboding.
Alice, on her part, could not free her mind from the burden of his crime. He was so young and so handsome, to be hunted like a noxious beast! She had at the moment more concern of him than of Ward, and in this lay a certain disloyalty. She sighed deeply as she thought of the outlaw resuming his flight next day. Would it not be better for him to sacrifice himself to the vengeance of the state at once and so end it? What right had she to shield him from the law's demand? "He is a criminal, after all. He must pay for his rash act."
She could not sleep, and when he rose to feed the fire she softly asked, "Does it still storm?"
"No," he answered in a tone that voiced disappointment; "the sky is clear."
"Isn't that cheering!" she exclaimed, still in the same hushed voice.
"For you," he replied. "For me it's another story." He felt the desire for a secret consultation which moved her, and on his way back to his corner he halted and fixed his eyes upon her in hungry admiration of her fire-lit face. Then he spoke: "I should have pulled out before the storm quit. They can trail me now. But no matter; I've known you."
She still kept to ambiguous speech. "Wouldn't it be better to give up and take your—misfortune, and begin again? Professor Ward and I will do all we can to help you."
"That's mighty white of you," he responded, slowly. "But I can't stand the thought of confinement. I've been free as an Injun all my life. Every way of the wind has been open to me. No; just as long as I can find a wild spot I must keep moving. If it comes to 'hands up!' I take the short cut." He tapped his revolver as he spoke.
"You mustn't do that," she entreated. "Promise me you won't think of that!"
He made a stride toward her, but a movement of her companion checked him.
"Is it morning?" Peggy sleepily asked.
"Not quite," answered the outlaw, "but it's time for me to be moving. I'd like to hear from you some time," he said to Alice, and his voice betrayed his sadness and tenderness. "Where could I reach you?"
She gave her address with a curious sense of wrong-doing.
He listened intently. "I'll remember that," he said, "when I've forgotten everything else. And now—" He reached his hand to her and she took it.
"Poor boy! I'm sorry for you!" she whispered.
Her words melted his heart. Dropping on his knees beside her bed, he pressed her fingers to his lips, then rose. "I'll see you again—somewhere—some time," he said, brokenly. "Good-by."
No sooner had the door closed behind the outlaw than Peggy rose in her place beside Alice and voiced her mystification. "Now what is the meaning of all that?"
"Don't ask me," replied the girl. "I don't feel like talking, and my foot is aching dreadfully. Can't you get up and bathe it? I hate to ask you—but it hurts me so."
Peggy sprang up and began to dress, puffing and whistling with desperation. As soon as she was dressed she ran to the door and opened it. All was still a world of green and white. "The fire is almost out," she reported, "and I can see Mr. Smith's horse's tracks."
V
It was about ten o'clock when a couple of horsemen suddenly rounded the point of the forest and rode into the clearing. One of them, a slender, elderly man with gray, curly beard and a skin like red leather, dismounted and came slowly to the door, and though his eyes expressed surprise at meeting women in such a place, he was very polite.
"Mornin', ma'am," he said, with suave inflection.
"Good morning," Peggy replied.
"Fine snowy mornin'."
"It is so." She was a little irritated by the fixed stare of his round, gray eyes.
He became more direct. "May I ask who you are and how you happen to be here, ma'am?"
"You may. I'm Mrs. Adams. I came up here with my husband, Professor Adams."
"Where is he?"
"He has gone up the trail toward Frémont. He is a botanist."
"Is that his horse's tracks?"
Alice called sharply, "Peggy!"
Mrs. Adams turned abruptly and went in.
The stranger turned a slow gaze upon his companion. "Well, this beats me. 'Pears like we're on the wrong trail, Bob. I reckon we've just naturally overhauled a bunch of tourists."
"Better go in and see what's inside," suggested the other man, slipping from his horse.
"All right. You stay where you are."
As he stepped to the door and rapped, Peggy opened it, but Alice took up the inquiry.
"What do you want?" she asked, imperiously.
The man, after looking keenly about, quietly replied: "I'm wonderin' how you women come to be here alone, but first of all I want to know who made them tracks outside the door?"
Alice ignored the latter part of his question and set about satisfying his wonder. "We came up here with a geological survey, but my horse fell on my foot and I couldn't ride, so the men had to leave me behind—"
"Alone?" sharply interrogated the man.
"No; one man stayed."
"What was his name?"
"I don't know. We called him Smith."
"Was he the man that rode away this morning?"
"What does that matter to you?" asked the girl. "Why are you so inquisitive?"
He maintained his calm tone of mild authority. "I'm the sheriff of Uinta County, ma'am, and I'm looking for a man who's been hiding out in this basin. I was trailin' him close when the snow came on yesterday, and I didn't know but what these tracks was his."
Peggy turned toward Alice with an involuntary expression of enlightenment, and the sheriff read it quickly. Slipping between the two women, he said:
"Jest a minute, miss. What sort of a looking man was this Smith?"
Alice took up the story. "He was rather small and dark—wasn't he, Peggy?"
Peggy considered. "I didn't notice him particularly. Yes, I think he was."
The man outside called: "Hurry up, Cap. It's beginning to snow again."
The sheriff withdrew toward the door. "You're both lying," he remarked without heat, "but it don't matter. We'll mighty soon overhaul this man on the horse—whoever he is. If you've been harboring Hall McCord we'll have to take you, too." With that threat as a farewell he mounted his horse and rode away.
Peggy turned to Alice. "Did you know that young fellow was an outlaw?"
"Yes; I saw his picture and description on a placard in the railway station. I recognized him at once."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Well, I liked his looks, and, besides, I wanted to find out if he were really bad or only unfortunate."
"What has he done?"
"They say he held up a train!"
"Merciful Heavens! a train-robber! What's his real name?"
"The name on the placard was Hall McCord."
"And to think he was in the same room with us last night, and you were chumming with him! I can't understand you. Are you sure he is the robber?"
"Yes. He confessed to having tried to rob the express car."
"He seemed such a nice fellow. How did he come to do it?"
Alice concluded not to honor the other girl by bringingher into the discussion. "Oh, it is hard to say. Need of money, I suppose. Poor boy, I pity him."
"They'll get him, sure. They can follow his tracks as easy as anything. I don't suppose I ought to say it, but I hope he'll get away. Don't you?"
"Yes, I do!" was Alice's fervent response. "But see! it's snowing again. It may cover his trail."
Peggy went to the door and gazed long and keenly at the peaks. When she turned her face was solemn. "Allie, this is getting pretty serious for us. If the men don't come to-day they may get snowed up entirely."
Alice stifled a wail. "Oh, if I were only able to walk I wouldn't mind. I could help gather fuel and keep the fire going."
"There's plenty of wood for another day, but I'm worried about the men. Suppose they are up on that glacier?"
"I'm not worried about them, but I know they are worrying about us. They'll surely start back this morning; but they may not be able to reach us till night."
The light of the morning had turned gray and feeble. The air was still and the forest soundless, save now and then when a snow-laden branch creaked with its burden.
There was something majestic as well as menacing in this all-pervading solemn hush.
Peggy went about her duties as cheerfully as she could, but with a wider knowledge of mountaineering than Alice had. She was at heart quite terrified. "We're going to miss our nice outlaw," she remarked. "He was so effective as a purveyor of wood." Then she went to the door and looked out. "That sheriff will never keep his trail," she said.
"What's that?" suddenly asked Alice.
Both listened. "I hear it!" whispered Peggy. "It's a horse—there! Some one spoke."
"It's Freeman!" Alice joyously called out. "Coohoo!"
No one replied, and Peggy, rushing to the door, met the young outlaw, who appeared on the threshold with stern, set face.
"Who's been here since I left? Your party?"
Peggy recoiled in surprise and alarm, and Alice cried out, "Why did you come back?"
"Two men on horseback have been here since I left. Who were they?" His voice was full of haste.
"One of them said—he was the—the sheriff," Alice replied, faintly.
He smiled then, a kind of terrifying humor in his eyes. "Well, the chances are he knew. They took my trail, of course, and left in a hurry. Expected to overhaul me on the summit. They've got their work cut out for 'em."
"How did they miss you?" the girl asked, huskily.
"Well, you see, when I got up where I could view the sky I was dead sure we were in for a whooping big snow-storm, and I just couldn't leave you girls up here all alone, so I struck right down the cañon in the bed of the creek—the short cut. I don't like to back-trail, anyway; it's a bad habit to get into. I like to leave as blind a trail as I can." His face lighted up, grew boyish again. "They're sure up against a cold proposition about now. They'll lose my track among the rocks, but they'll figure I've hustled right on over into Pine Creek, and if they don't freeze to death in the pass they'll come out at Glover's hay-meadow to-morrow night. How's the wood-pile holding out?"
"Please go!" cried Alice. "Take your chance now and hurry away."
"I'm not used to leaving women in such a fix. The moment I saw that the blizzard was beginning all over again I turned back."
"You haven't had any breakfast?" said Peggy.
"Nothing to speak of," he replied, dryly. "I wasn't thinking of breakfast when I pulled out."
"I'll get you some."
Alice could not throw off the burden of his danger. "What will you do when my people return?"
"I don't know—trust to luck."
"You are very foolish. They are certain to come to-day."
"They won't know who I am if you women don't give me away."
"I'm sure Freeman—Professor Ward—will know you, for he also saw the placard."
"That's no sign. Suppose he does—maybe he won't think it is his job to interfere. Anyway"—here his voice became decisive—"I won't leave you in such a fix as this." His eyes spoke to her of that which his tongue could not utter. "I wanted an excuse to come back, anyway," he concluded. "No matter what comes now, my job is here to protect you."
She did not rebuke him, and Peggy—though she wondered at his tone—was too grateful for his presence even to question Alice's motive in permitting such remarks.
As for Alice, she felt herself more and more involved in the tangled skein of his mysterious life. His sudden and reckless abandonment of the old love which had ruined him, and the new and equally irrational regard which he now professed for her, filled her with a delicious marveling.
He appealed to a woman's imagination. He had the spice of the unknown. In her relationship with Ward there was no danger, no mystery—his courtship narrowly escaped being commonplace. She had accepted his attentions and expected to marry him, and yet the thought of the union produced, at its warmest, merely a glow of comfort, a sense of security, whereas the hint of being loved and protected by this Rob Roy of the hills, this reckless Rough Rider of the wilderness, was instinct with romance. Of course his devotion was a crazy folly, and yet, lying there in her rough bunk, with an impenetrable wall of snow shutting out the rest of the world, it was hard not to feel that this man and his future had become an inescapable part of her life—a part which grew in danger and in charm from hour to hour.
Full two miles above the level of her own home, surrounded by peaks unscalably wild and lonely, deserted by those who should care for her, was it strange that she should return this man's adoring gaze with something of the primal woman's gratitude and submission?
The noon darkened into dusk as they talked, slowly, with long pauses, and one by one the stirring facts of the rover's life came out. From his boyhood he had always done the reckless thing. He had known no restraint till, as a member of the Rough Riders, he yielded a partial obedience to his commanders. When the excitement of the campaigns was over he had deserted and gone back to the round-up wagon and the camp-fire.
In the midst of his confidences he maintained a reserve about his family which showed more self-mastery than anything else about him. That he was the black sheep of an honorable flock became increasingly evident. He had been the kind of lad who finds in the West a fine field for daredevil adventure. And yet there wereunstirred deeps in the man. He was curious about a small book which Alice kept upon her bed, and which she read from time to time with serene meditation on her face.
"What is that?" he asked.
"My Bible."
"Can I see it?"
"Certainly."
He took it carefully and read the title on the back, then turned a few of the leaves. "I'm not much on reading," he said, "but I've got a sister that sends me tracts, and the like." He returned to the fly-leaf. "Is this your name?"
"Yes."
"'Alice Mansfield,'" he read; "beautiful name! 'New York City'! That's pretty near the other side of the world to me." He studied the address with intent look. "I'd like to buy this book. How much will you take for it?"
"I'll trade it for your weapon," she replied.
He looked at her narrowly. "You mean something by that. I reckon I follow you. No, I can't do that—not now. If I get into business over the line I'll disarm, but in this country a fellow needs to be protected. I want this book!"
"For the fly-leaf?"
He smiled in return. "You've hit it."
She hesitated. "I'll give you the book if you'll promise to read it."
He clapped the covers together and put the volume in his pocket. "It's mine! I'll read every word of it, if it takes an age, and here's my hand on it."
She gave him her hand, and in this clasp something came to her from his clutching fingers which soberedher. She drew her hand away hastily and said: "If you read that book—and think about it—it will change your whole world."
He, too, lost his brightness. "Well, I'm not so anxious to keep up this kind of life. But if anybody changes me it will be you."
"Hush!" she warned with lifted finger.
He fell back, and after a little silence went out to wait upon the fire.
"It seems to me," said Peggy, reprovingly, "that you're too gracious with this mountaineer; he's getting presumptuous."
"He doesn't mean to be. It's his unsophisticated way. Anyhow, we can't afford to be captious to our host."
"That's true," admitted Peggy.
The night shut down with the snow still falling, but with a growing chill in the air.
"The flakes are finer," the outlaw announced, as he came in a little later. "That is a good sign. It is growing colder and the wind is changing. It will pinch hard before sun-up, and the worst of it, there's no way to warm the cabin. We can't have the door open to-night. I'm worried about you," he said to Alice. "If only those chumps had left a man-size ax!"
The two women understood that this night was to bring them into closer intimacy with the stranger than before. He could not remain outdoors, and though they now knew something of his desperate character, they had no fear of him. He had shown his chivalry. No one could have been more considerate of them, for he absented himself at Peggy's request instantly and without suggestion of jocularity, and when he came in and found them both in bed he said:
"I reckon I'll not make down to-night—you'll needall your blankets before morning"; and thereupon, without weighing their protests, proceeded to spread the extra cover over them.
Alice looked up at him in the dim light of the candle and softly asked: "What will you do? You will suffer with cold!"
"Don't worry about me; I'm an old campaigner. I still have a blanket to wrap around my shoulders. I'll snooze in a corner. If you hear me moving around don't be worried; I'm hired to keep the fire going even if it doesn't do us much good inside."
The chill deepened. The wind began to roar, and great masses of snow, dislodged from the tall trees above the cabin, fell upon its roof with sounds like those of soft, slow footfalls. Strange noises of creaking and groaning and rasping penetrated to Alice's ears, and she cowered half in fear, half in joy of her shelter and her male protector. Men were fine animals for the wild.
She fell asleep at last, seeing her knight's dim form propped against the wall, wrapped in a blanket Indian-wise, his head bowed over the book she had given him, a candle smoking in his hand.
She woke when he rose to feed the fire, and the current of cold air which swept in caused her to cover her mouth with the blanket. He turned toward her.
"It's all over for sure, this time," he said. "It's cold and goin' to be colder. How are you standing it? If your feet are cold I can heat a stone. How is the hurt foot?" He drew near and looked down upon her anxiously.
"Very much easier, thank you."
"I'm mighty glad of that. I wish I could take the pain all on myself."
"You have troubles of your own," she answered, as lightly as she could.
"That's true, too," he agreed in the same tone. "So many that a little one more or less wouldn't count."
"Do you call my wound little?"
"I meant the foot was little—"
She checked him.
"I didn't mean to make light of it. It sure is no joke." He added, "I've made a start on the book."
"How do you like it?"
"I don't know yet," he answered, and went back to his corner.
She snuggled under her warm quilts again, remorseful, yet not daring to suggest a return of the blanket he had lent. When she woke again he was on his feet, swinging his arms silently. His candle had gone out, but a faint light was showing in the room.
"Is it morning?" she asked.
"Just about," he replied, stretching like a cat.
The dawn came gloriously. The sun in far-splashing splendor slanted from peak to peak, painting purple shadows on the snow and warming the boles of the tall trees till they shone like fretted gold. The jays cried out as if in exultation of the ending of the tempest, and the small stream sang over its icy pebbles with resolute cheer. It was a land to fill a poet with awe and ecstatic praise—a radiant, imperial, and merciless landscape. Trackless, almost soundless, the mountain world lay waiting for the alchemy of the sun.