oney in my muff to buy a license, if you'll pay the
preacher, Jack. We'll go fifty-fifty on the cost--"

"And a darned good chance of being sent up for that deal the boys
pulled off--"

"Oh, well, I can wait till you get out again. Say, I just love you
with that little lump between your eyebrows when you scowl! Go on,
Jack; I'm cold. My gracious, what a storm! It's getting worse, don't
you think? When does that train go down, Jack? We'll have to be at the
station before dark, or we might get lost and miss the train, and then
we would be in a fix! I wish to goodness I'd thought to put on my blue
velvet suit--but then, how was I going to know that I'd need it to get
married in?"

Jack stopped on the very edge of the bank, and held back the
snow-laden branches for her to pass. "You're the limit for having your
own way," he grinned. "I can see who's going to be boss of the camp,
all right. Come on--the sooner we get down into lower country, the
less chance we'll have of freezing. We'll cross here, and get down in
that thick timber below. The wind won't catch us quite so hard, and if
a tree don't fall on us we'll work our way down to the trail. Give me
a kiss. This is a toll gate, and you've got to pay--"

Standing so, with one arm flung straight out against the thick boughs
of a young spruce, he made a fair target for Mike back there among the
trees. Mike was clean over the edge now of sanity. The two spies had
come together--two against one, and searching for him to kill him, as
he firmly believed. When they had stood under the cedar he thought
that they were hiding there, waiting for him to walk into the trap
they had set. He would have shot them, but the branches were too
thick. When they moved out along the gulch, Mike ran crouching after,
his rifle cocked and ready for aim. You would have thought that the
man was stalking a deer. When Jack stopped and turned, with his arm
flung back against the spruce, he seemed to be looking straight at
Mike.

Mike aimed carefully, for he was shaking with terror and the cold of
those heights. The sharp pow-w of his rifle crashed through the
whispery roar of the pines, and the hills flung back muffled echoes.
Marion screamed, saw Jack sag down beside the spruce, clutched at him
wildly, hampered by her muff. Saw him go sliding down over the bank,
into the gulch, screamed again and went sliding after him.

Afterwards she remembered a vague impression she had had, of hearing
some