ger.

Johnson's joy knew no bounds; he burst out delightedly:

"Why, I'm like Dante! I want the world in that hour, because, you see,
I'm afraid the door of this little paradise might be shut to me after--
Let's say this is my one hour--the hour that gave me--that kiss I want."

"Go long! You go to grass!" returned the Girl with a nervous little
laugh.

Johnson made one more effort and won out; that is, he succeeded, at
last, in getting her in his grasp.

"Listen," said the determined lover, pleading for a kiss as he would
have pleaded for his very life.

It was at this juncture that Wowkle, silently, stealthily, emerged from
the cupboard and made her way over to the door. Her feet were heavily
moccasined and she was blanketed in a stout blanket of gay colouring.

"Ugh--some snow!" she muttered, as a gust of wind beat against her face
and drove great snow-flakes into the room, fairly taking her breath
away. But her words fell on deaf ears. For, oblivious to the storm that
was now raging outside, the youthful pair of lovers continued to
concentrate their thoughts upon the storm that was raging within their
own breasts, the Girl keeping up the struggle with herself, while the
man urged her on as only he knew how.

"Why, if I let you take one you'd take two," denied the Girl,
half-yielding by her very words, if she but knew it.

"No, I wouldn't--I swear I wouldn't," promised the man with great
earnestness.

"Ugh--very bad!" was the Indian woman's muffled ejaculation as she
peered out into the night. But she had promised her lover to come to him
when supper was over, and she would not break faith with him even if it
were at the peril of her life. The next moment she went out, as did the
red light in the Girl's lantern hanging on a peg of the outer door.

"Oh, please, please," said the Girl, half-protestingly, half-willingly.

But the man was no longer to be denied; he kept on urging:

"One kiss, only one."

Here was an appeal which could no longer be resisted, and though
half-frightened by the tone of his voice and the look in his eye, the
Girl let herself be taken into his arms as she murmured:

"'Tain't no use, I lay down my hands to you."

And so it was that, unconscious of the great havoc that was being
wrought by the storm, unconscious of the danger that momentarily
threatened their lives, they remained locked in each other's arms. The
Girl made no attempt to silence him now or withdraw her hands fro