was a curiously formed
"hog-back"--like a great windrow of snow piled up and frozen. Probably
it was miles in length. Somewhere he and Bram had crossed it soon after
passing the first cabin. He had not tried to tell Celie of this cabin.
Time had been too precious. But now, in the short interval of rest he
allowed themselves, he drew a picture of it in the snow and made her
understand that it was somewhere close to the ridge and that it looked
as though the stranger was making for it. He half carried Celie up the
ridge after that. She could not hide from him that her feet were
dragging even at a walk. Exhaustion showed in her face, and once when
she tried to speak to him her voice broke in a little gasping sob. On
the far side of the ridge he took her in his arms and carried her again.

"It can't be much farther," he encouraged her. "We've got to overtake
him pretty soon, dear. Mighty soon." Her hand pressed gently against
his cheek, and he swallowed a thickness that in spite of his effort
gathered in his throat. During that last half hour a different look had
come into her eyes. It was there now as she lay limply with her head on
his breast--a look of unutterable tenderness, and of something else. It
was that which brought the thickness into his throat. It was not fear.
It was the soft glow of a great love--and of understanding. She knew
that even he was almost at the end of his fight. His endurance was
giving out. One of two things must happen very soon. She continued to
stroke his cheek gently until he placed her on her feet again, and then
she held one of his hands close to her breast as they looked behind
them, and listened. He could feel the soft throbbing of her heart. If
he needed greater courage then it was given to him.

They went on. And then, so suddenly that it brought a stifled cry from
the girl's lips, they came upon the cabin. It was not a hundred yards
from them when they first saw it. It was no longer abandoned. A thin
spiral of smoke was rising from the chimney. There was no sign of life
other than that.

For half a minute Philip stared at it. Here, at last, was the final
hope. Life or death, all that the world might hold for him and the girl
at his side, was in that cabin. Gently he drew her so that she would be
unseen. And then, still looking at the cabin, he drew off his coat and
dropped it in the snow. It was the preparation of a man about to fight.
The look of it was in his face and the stiffeni