d the cabin. Before he reached it he saw Amalia coming to
meet him, hobbling on her crutch. She was bareheaded and the light of
morning was in her eyes.

"Ah, 'Arry, 'Arry King! He has come. I see here marks of feet of
horses in the snow--is not? Is well? Is safe? Larry Kildene so noble
and kind! Yes. My mother? No, she prepares the food, and me, I shut
the door when I run out to see is it sun to-day and the terrible snow
no more falling. There I see the marks of horses, yes." She spoke
excitedly, and looked up in Harry's face with smiles on her lips and
anxious appeal in her eyes.

"Throw down that crutch and lean on me. I'll lift you up--There! Now
we'll go back to the cabin and lead Goldbug around a bit, so his
tracks will cover the others and account for them. Then after
breakfast I'll take you to the top of the trail and tell you."

She leaned down to him from her seat on the horse and put her hand on
his shoulder. "Is well? And you--you have not slept? No?"

Looking up in her face so wonderful and beautiful, so filled with
tender solicitude for him, and her glowing eyes fixed on his, he was
covered with confusion even to scarcely comprehending what she said.
He took the hand from his shoulder and kissed the tips of her fingers,
then dropped it and walked on ahead, leading the horse.

"I'm well, yes. Tired a bit, but, oh, yes! Larry Kildene? He's all
right. We'll go out on the trail and consult--what is best to do about
your mother--and say nothing until then."

To Amalia a kiss on the finger tips meant no more than the usual
morning greeting in her own country, and she rode on undisturbed by
his demonstration, which he felt keenly and for which he would have
knelt and begged her pardon. Ever since his first unguarded moment
when he returned and found her fainting on the hillside, he had set
such rigid watch over his actions that his adoration had been
expressed only in service--for the most part silent and with averted
eyes. This aloofness she felt, and with the fineness of her nature
respected, letting her own play of imagination hover away from
intimate intrusion, merely lightening the somber relationship that
would otherwise have existed, like a breeze that stirs only the
surface of a deep pool and sets dancing lights at play but leaves the
depths undisturbed.

Yet, with all her intuitiveness, she found him difficult and
enigmatic. An impenetrable wall seemed to be ever between them,
erected by his wil