w my only companion was
this Aline Hope you speak of. I found her in the blizzard, and took her
to an empty cabin near. She and her husband were motoring from
Avalanche to Mesa, and the machine had broken down. Harley had gone for
help and left her there alone when the blizzard came up. Three days
later Sam Yesler and the old man broke trail through from the C B Ranch
and rescued us."

It was so strange a story that it came home to Eaton piecemeal.

"Three days--alone with Harley's wife--and he rescued you himself."

"He didn't rescue me any. I could have broken through any time I wanted
to leave her. On the way back his strength gave out, and that was when
I roughed him. I tried to bullyrag him into keeping on, but it was no
go. I left him there, and Sam went back after him with a relief-party."

"You left him! With his wife?"

"No!" cried Ridgway. "Do I look like a man to desert a woman on a
snow-trail? I took her with me."

"Oh!" There was a significant silence before Eaton asked the question
in his mind. "I've seen her pictures in the papers. Does she look like
them?"

His chief knew what was behind the question, and he knew, too, that
Eaton might be taken to represent public opinion. The world would cast
an eye of review over his varied and discreditable record with women.
It would imagine the story of those three days of enforced confinement
together, and it would look to the woman in the case for an answer to
its suspicions. That she was young, lovely, and yet had sold herself to
an old man for his millions, would go far in itself to condemn her; and
he was aware that there were many who would accept her very childish
innocence as the sophistication of an artist.

Waring Ridgway put his arms akimbo on the table and leaned across with
his steady eyes fastened on his friend.

"Steve, I'm going to answer that question. I haven't seen any pictures
of her in the papers, but if they show a face as pure and true as the
face of God himself then they are like her. You know me. I've got no
apologies or explanations to make for the life I've led. That's my
business. But you're my friend, and I tell you I would rather be hacked
in pieces by Apaches than soil that child's white soul by a single
unclean breath. There mustn't be any talk. Do you understand? Keep the
story out of the newspapers. Don't let any of our people gossip about
it. I have told you because I want you to know the truth. If any one
should speak l