s, bury
them in a Titanic grave of ice. There had been a good deal of timber
cut from the shoulder of the mountain during the past summer, and this
very greatly increased the danger. That there was a real peril the man
looking at it did not attempt to deny to himself. It would be enough to
deny it to her in case she should ever suspect.

He had hoped for cold weather, a freeze hard enough to crust the
surface of the snow. Upon this he might have made shift somehow to get
her to Yesler's ranch, eighteen miles away though it was, but he knew
this would not be feasible with the snow in its present condition. It
was not certain that he could make the ranch alone; encumbered with
her, success would be a sheer impossibility. On the other hand, their
provisions would not last long. The outlook was not a cheerful one,
from whichever point of view he took it; yet there was one phase of it
he could not regret. The factors which made the difficulties of the
situation made also its delights. Though they were prisoners in this
solitary untrodden canyon, the sentence was upon both of them. She
could look to none other than he for aid; and, at least, the drifts
which kept them in held others out.

Her voice at his shoulder startled him.

"Wherefore this long communion with nature, my captain?" she gaily
asked. "Behold, my lord's hot cakes are ready for the pan and his
servant to wait upon him." She gave him a demure smiling little curtsy
of mock deference.

Never had her distracting charm been more in evidence. He had not seen
her since they parted on the previous night. He had built for himself a
cot in the woodshack, and had contrived a curtain that could be drawn
in front of her bed in the living-room. Thus he could enter in the
morning, light the fires, and start breakfast without disturbing her.
She had dressed her hair, now in a different way, so that it fell in
low waves back from the forehead and was bunched at the nape of her
neck. The light swiftness of her dainty grace, the almost exaggerated
carnation of the slightly parted lips, the glad eagerness that sparked
her eyes, brought out effectively the picturesqueness of her beauty.

His grave eyes rested on her so long that a soft glow mantled her
cheeks. Perhaps her words had been too free, though she had not meant
them so. For the first time some thought of the conventions distressed
her. Ought she to hold herself more in reserve toward him? Must she
restrain her natu