here which will keep us both safe.
Look!"

He tore from the chain which held it at his throat the little metal
cross, and held it high overhead, glimmering in the pallid light. She
forgot her fear in wonder.

"I gambled with only one coin to lose, and I came out to-night with
hundreds and hundreds of dollars because I had the cross. It is a
charm against all danger and against all bad fortune. It has never
failed me."

Over them the piled mass slid closer. The forehead of Pierre gleamed
with sweat, but a strong purpose made him talk on. At least he could
take all the foreboding of death from the child, and when the end came
it would be swift and wipe them both out at one stroke. She clung to
him, eager to believe.

"I've closed my eyes so that I can believe."

"It has never failed me. It saved me once when I fought a big bobcat
with only a knife. It saved me again when I fought two men. Both of
them were famous fighters, but neither of them had the cross. One of
them I crippled and the other died. You see, the power of the cross is
as great as that. Do you doubt it now, Mary?"

"Do you believe in it so much--really--Pierre?"

Each time there was a little lowering of her voice, a little pause and
caress in the tone as she uttered his name, and nothing in all his life
had stirred Red Pierre so deeply with happiness and sorrow.

"Do you believe, Pierre?" she repeated.

He looked up and saw the shuddering mass of the landslide creeping upon
them inch by inch. In another moment it would loose itself with a rush
and cover them.

"I believe," he said.

"If you should live, and I should die--"

"I would throw the cross away."

"No, you would keep it; and every time it touched cold against your
breast you would think of me, Pierre, would you not?"

"When you reach out to me like that, you sort of take my heart between
your hands."

"And when you look at me like that I feel grown-up and sad and happy
both together. But, listen, Pierre, I know why I cannot die now. God
means us to be so happy together, doesn't He? Because after we've been
together on such a night, how can we ever be apart again?"

The mass of the landslide toppled right above them. She did not seem
to see.

"Of course we never can be."

"But we'll be like a brother and sister and something more."

"And something more, Mary."

She clapped her hands and laughed. The laughter hurt him more than her
sobbing, for as she la