His brows clouded; he turned from the lantern light to look off again to the shrouded mountain tops. "And looking back," he added, "the man you thought you knew better than the rest, the partner, friend, to whom, when you were reminded and it suited your convenience, you were ready to do a service, stands out from the shadows clearly defined. It is under the test of those high lights behind that his character shines. You wonder at his greatness. His personality takes a stronger, closer hold, and you would give the rest of your life just to go back and travel the old, hard road again with him."
There was a long silence, broken once more by that far, wailing cry on the wind. Miss Armitage started. She laid her hand on Tisdale's shoulder, the nearest object, in a tightening grip, while for a breathless moment she leaned forward, trying to penetrate the darkness of the gorge. The action seemed to remind him of her presence, and he turned to look at her. "Frightened again?" he asked.
Her hand fell; she settled back in her seat. "N-o, not very much, but it took me off guard. It sounds so desolate, so—so—supernatural; like the cry of a doomed soul."
Tisdale smiled. "That describes it, but you never have heard it at close range."
She shivered; her glance moved again in apprehension to the night-enshrouded Pass. "Have you, Mr. Tisdale?"
"Yes, lonesome nights by a mountain camp-fire, with just the wind piping down a ravine, or a cataract breaking over a spur to fill the interlude."
"Oh, that must have been terrifying," and the shiver crept into her voice.
"But what did you do?"
"Why, I hurried to pull the embers together and throw on more spruce boughs. A cougar is cautious around a fire."
There was another silence, then, "I was thinking of your little, white-faced woman," said Miss Armitage. "She baffles me. Was she your bravest woman or just your anemone? Would you mind telling me?"
"So you were thinking of her. That's odd; so was I." Tisdale changed his position, turning to lean on the edge of the porch with his elbow resting on the floor. "But it was that Gordon setter there that reminded me of her. Her dog had the same points, though he had been better trained." He paused briefly, then said: "She was both. She was like that small, white flower which grows in the shelter of the Alaska woods—sweet and modest and frail looking—yet she was the bravest woman and the strongest when it came to endurance I ever knew."