Dexter lay quiet, hearing the scraping and chipping of the knife blade hacking the icy ground, feeling the movements of her hands as she pulled the earth from under his shoulder. He had forewarned her, and if she still saw fit to play the Samaritan, he would make no further attempt to stop her. So he waited, grim and alert, ready to extricate himself the instant the hole was sufficiently enlarged.
The girl worked with breathless energy at her self-imposed task, and in a few minutes she had burrowed through to meet Dexter's excavation. There seemed to be no sense of feeling in his shoulder, yet somehow he knew when the pressure was taken away. He flexed his cramped muscles, and found he could still move his body. Slowly he wriggled free, and then, concentrating his will force into the effort, he gripped at the rough tree trunk and weakly hoisted himself to his feet.
The corporal's face was immutable as a death mask as he bent forward to confront the crouching girl. "I'm sorry you didn't go when you could," he said. "Now it's too late. You're my prisoner."
Alison got to her feet and stood erect, her breast heaving. "I had to do that much," she returned. "You did more than that for me one time. But now—now I've got to think of myself, and of my brother. Neither of us is going to let anybody arrest us, if we can help it—and so—" She stopped with a gulp and started to back away.
But Dexter had foreseen what she meant to do. The fallen tree lay between them, and the girl had counted on her ability to slip beyond reach before the officer could stumble after her. She failed to realize, however, that with some indomitable men, the physical body may be held subservient to the power of mind. Dexter was watching, and anticipated her intention a second before she started to leave him. Weak and giddy as he felt, he nevertheless held a last reserve of strength to answer the mental summons. As a runner spurs himself onward with the final gasp of breath, so he sprang forward and somehow managed to clear the log. Alison was taken by surprise, and before she could turn to flee, he had planted himself before her. "I warned you!" he muttered; and then his left hand shot out and closed tightly about her wrist.
CHAPTER XXIV
A HARD-WON PROMISE
For two or three seconds the girl and the policeman faced each other tensely in the soft moonlight; and then, as she met his steely gaze, her eyes narrowed, her lips drew apart, her breathing quickened. "Let go!" she panted.
With a twist and a wrench she tried to withdraw her slender wrist from his grasp. He shook his head with a slight movement, and his grip tightened. The restraining clutch seemed to madden her, and she fought wildly, furiously, to free herself. But disabled as he was, shaken by many hours of suffering, he still was stronger than she. Back and forth they struggled over the snowy ground, relentless antagonists, the girl desperately determined to escape, the man coldly resolved that she should not break away from him.
Neither spoke, and the soft night silence was disturbed only by the crunch of boots scuffling in the snow. In groping for a securer foothold, Dexter slipped and lurched forward, stumbling. The girl found her chance. Quick as a flash she doubled her arm and thrust her elbow into the corporal's shoulder; at the same time she tried with all her might to force him backwards, and wrest herself free from his grasp.