is serious in itself--if we could get you
down to a doctor," he told her. "It isn't bleeding much now, because
you are lying still, but it has been bleeding pretty freely. It's just
a flesh wound, really. But you see----"

Her mind leaped at once to his thought. "You mean--it's the same,
either way?" she questioned.

"It doesn't make much difference." The man spoke quietly, just as she
might have expected him to speak in such a moment as this. "Oh,
Virginia--we've fought so hard--it's bitter to lose now. You see,
don't you--you couldn't walk with that wound--you don't know the
way, so I could walk and pull you on the sled--and Harold is gone. He
won't show us the way or help us now. We haven't any food here--the
grizzly has been eaten by wolves. One of us blind and one of us
wounded--you see--what chance we've got against the North. If we had
the grizzly flesh, we could stay here till my sight returned--and still,
perhaps, get you out in time to save you from the injury. If you knew
the way to the settlements, I might haul you on the sled--you guiding
me--and take a chance of running into some meat on the way down. But
none of those things are true."

"Then what"--the girl spoke breathlessly--"does it mean?"

"It means death--that's all it means." There was no sentimentality,
no tremor in his voice now. He was looking his fate in the face; he
knew he could not spare the girl by keeping the truth from her. "Death
as sure as we're here--from hunger and your wound--if Harold or the
cold doesn't get us first. We've been cheated, Virginia. We've played
with a crooked dealer. I don't care on my own account----"

"Then don't care on mine, either." All at once her hand went up and
caressed his face. "Hold me, Bill, won't you?" she asked. "Hold me in
your arms."

She asked it simply, like a little child. He shifted his position, then
lifted her so that her breast was against his, his arms around her, her
soft hair against his shoulder. The candle, dropped from his hand, was
extinguished. The cold deepened outside the cabin. The white, icy moon
rode in the sky.

The man's arms tightened around her. He lowered his lips close to hers.
There in the shadow of death her breast pressed to his, the locks of
iron that held his heart's secret were shattered, the veil of his temple
was rent. "Virginia," he asked his voice throbbing, "do you want me to
tell you something--the truest thing in all my life?