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 sobered her. 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 need all 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.