"I'M GOING TO MAKE HIM WHITE"
The night was terrible. The wind became a gale. It assailed the tents; in the near hemlock grove it wrenched off great boughs; it lifted lighter brands from the fire and scattered them broadcast. There was a constant watch, which Samantha shared, to drag aside and beat out dangerous embers. The fire was enclosed in a circular windbreak of rocks, and other stones were brought to pin down the bellying canvas and ballast the working stakes. Up the mountain clouds clashed in thunder; the plateau was pelted by swift and furious storms of hail.
The final watch fell to Stratton. The wind was piercing and for warmth he tramped the earth. Once he stopped to lift a fresh log on the fire, and, drawing himself erect, his eyes rested on the women's tent. "She must be sleeping," he told himself. "I hope so; she was so unhappy about that black. That is her way—to take things hard—pleasure or sorrow. Jove, how she could love a man. But—she would hold him to his best, always, in every common move of every day." He shrugged his shoulders and swung on his heel to look out into the darkness of the valley. It was so dense that the flame-illumined plateau seemed to rim an abyss. "That was it—the reason I went so nearly to pieces for that minute, there on the glacier. I felt the Puritan in her all at once demanding the best in me. And there was no best; there never can be." He tramped another interval. "But," he said at last, and the steel flashed again in his eyes, "there is not a man living I am afraid to face; and if I ever loved a woman—or thought I did—sooner or later she was glad to have me tell her so. I never have failed to get what I wanted, all my life, and I am going to want—her."
At daybreak it was snowing on the plateau. He roused Kingsley. "Captain," he cried, shaking the sleeper, "Captain, wake up; we must hurry."
Philip rose, stretching himself, stiffly, and drew aside the tent-fly. "It doesn't look much like the summit to-day," he said.
"Summit?" repeated Stratton with disgust, "summit? What we have to think of, is the quickest way to get these women out of this."
A gust of wind rushed through the aperture, past Kingsley, and filled the tent. It lifted the canvas, balloon-wise, scattering the ballast, up-pulling the stakes, and carried it far afield. It led the men a chase, but they secured it and struggled with it back to the plateau. Truly it was not a day for mountain-tops.
Camp was broken hurriedly, each of the men taking the necessary shoulder pack, and leaving the bulk of the outfit to be sent for when they should find horses. They pushed quickly down from the snow, which became rain in the woods. And Alice led the way. She studied the trail continually, separating the tracks of the ponies, where they struck the path down the valley, from the deeper, water-filled impressions of the American horses. She set Stratton a pace, and kept it almost to the ford of the Paradise. Then suddenly she stopped an instant, listening, and ran on along the bank to an old log foot-crossing. There on the end of the bridge, sheltered by a trailing cedar, were her bridle and saddle; and picketed on a grassy knoll under some alders she saw the black.
"Oh," she said, and took his head in her arms, "you beauty! You heart's desire! But I knew—I knew Mose couldn't take you; I knew it."
Stratton stood for a moment watching her. "So," he said, "so the rascal was white enough to leave your horse. He brought him this far with the others to avoid pursuit last night."