bly on to Crestline. I was afraid of it."

"Night's coming."

"It's too late to turn back now."

And in spite of the pain of bleeding, snow-burned lips, Houston smiled
at her,--the smile that a man might give a sister of whom he was
inordinately proud.

"Are you afraid?"

"Of what?"

"Me."

She did not answer for a moment. Then:

"Are you afraid--of yourself?"

"No. Only men with something on their conscience are afraid."

She looked at him queerly, then turned away. Houston again took the
lead, rounding the stretches, then waiting for her, halting at the
dangerous gulleys and guiding her safely across, but silently. He had
said enough; more would require explanations. And there was a pack
upon his back which contained a tiny form with tight-curled hands, with
eyes that were closed,--a poor, nameless little thing he had sworn to
carry to grace and to protection. At last they reached the cabins.
Houston untied the bond which connected them and loosened his
snowshoes, that he might plunge into the smallest drift before a door
and force his way within. There was no wood; he tore the clapboards
from a near-by cabin and the tar paper from the wind-swept roof. Five
minutes later a fire was booming; a girl tired, bent-shouldered, her
eyes drooping from a sudden desire for sleep, huddled near it. Houston
walked to the pack and took food.

"You would rather eat alone?"

"Yes."

"I shall be in the next cabin--awake."

"Awake?"

"Yes. I'd rather--keep watch."

"But there is nothing--"

"Illness--a snowslide--a fresh drift. I would feel easier in mind.
Good night."

Then with his snowshoes and his pack of death, he went out the door, to
plunge through another drift, to force his way into a cabin, and there,
a plodding, dumb figure, go soddenly about the duties of comfort. And
more than once in the howling, blustery night which followed, Houston
shivered, shook himself into action and rose to rebuild a fire that had
died while he had sat hunched in the hard, uncomfortable chair beside
it, trying to fathom what the day had meant, striving to hope for the
keeping of the promises that an hysterical woman had made, struggling
for the strength to go on,--on with this cheery, brave little bit of
humanity in the next cabin, without a word in self-extenuation, without
a hint to break the lack of estimation in which she held him, without a
plea in his own defense. And some way, Houston felt that such a