guns and go see
which; we're crazy to stay here!"

I nodded mechanically. I knew what it meant for a girl to be lost in the
snow on such a night as I had just closed the shack door on, even with
Charliet beside her; how Collins and I might tramp, search--yes, and
call, too--uselessly, beside the very drift where she lay smothered.
And then I realized I was a fool. Macartney would not give Paulette a
chance to get lost. He had her somewhere, her and Charliet, and Collins
and I had to take her from him. But something inexplicable stopped me
dead as I turned for the shack door. Macartney had never been a winter
at La Chance; he had no snowshoes. Charliet had some, I didn't know
where. But I had two pairs in my own room. That inexplicable suggestion
told me I needed them badly, though I knew it was silly; if Macartney
had Paulette he would not be marching her through the snow. All the
places I had to search for her were the stable and the assay office. And
yet----I backed Collins noiselessly past the room where Marcia was still
pulling round Paulette's trunk, with a noise that covered any we could
make, and the two of us ended up in my room in the black dark. I stood
Collins at the door while I felt for my snowshoes. I knew it was crazy,
and I was just obsessed, but I got them. I didn't get much else. I
couldn't find my rifle I had hoped for, and only a couple of boxes of
revolver cartridges were in my open trunk,--that I guessed Marcia had
gone through too. I would have felt like wringing her neck, if it had
not been for Paulette and Macartney. I had no room for outside emotions
till I knew about those two. I slid back to my doorway to get Collins,
and he was gone. Where to, I had no earthly idea. I looked to see if he
had been cracked enough to tackle Marcia, and Marcia was alone on her
knees, chucking all Paulette's things back into her trunk again. The
place suddenly felt dead quiet. Marcia had stopped sobbing, and I
believe she would have heard a mouse move,--there was that kind of a
listening look about her. And it was that minute--that unsuitable,
inimical minute--that _I_ heard some one move! Outside, on the doorstep,
somebody stumbled. The latch lifted, the door swung in,--and I jumped to
meet Macartney with not one thing on me but some fool snowshoes and a
pocketful of useless cartridges. But I brought up dead still, and rigid.

"Charliet--oh, Charliet, come _quick_," whispered Paulette. She was snow
from head to