With a bound Lawler tore the door open and stood, leaning against the terrific wind, trying to peer out into the white smother that shrieked around him. When he made out the outlines of a horse not more than half a dozen feet from the open doorway—the animal so encrusted with snow that he looked like a pallid ghost—and a shapeless bundle on his back that seemingly was ready to pitch into a huge drift that had formed in front of the cabin—he leaped outward, a groan of sympathy breaking from him.
In an instant he was inside again, carrying the shapeless bundle, his lips stiff and white as he peered close at it as he tenderly laid it on the floor of the cabin.
With swift movements he lighted the lamp again, and then returning to the bundle, leaned over it, pulling away a scarf that covered its head and disclosing a white, drawn face—the face of the woman he had met, in Willets, at the foot of the stairs leading to Gary Warden's office!
Lawler wheeled swiftly, leaping to first one and then to the other of the bunks where the fence cutters lay, tearing the ropes from them.
The tall man tumbled out first, urged by what he had seen and by the low tense voice of his captor. He seized a tin pan and dove out of the open doorway, returning instantly, the pan heaped high with snow. The other man, following the first quickly, dove through the snow drifts to the dugout where he fumbled in the slicker on Lawler's saddle until he found a flask.
By the time the little man returned the woman was in one of the lower bunks. A pair of bare feet, small and shapely, were sticking out over the edge of the bunk, and the tall fence cutter was vigorously rubbing snow upon them. A pair of small, high-top riding boots of soft, pliable leather, was lying beside the bunk near some pitiably thin stockings.
At the other end of the bunk Lawler was bathing, with ineffable tenderness and care, a face that had been swathed in the scarf he had previously removed. The long, glistening, black hair had been brushed back from its owner's forehead by Lawler; and a corner of a blanket had been modestly folded over a patch of white breast, exposed when Lawler had ruthlessly torn away the flimsy, fluffy waist.
"It was the scarf that saved her face," said Lawler, after he had worked over the unconscious form for a quarter of an hour. The face was flushed, now—which was a good sign; and the feet and ankles were beginning to show signs of restored circulation also—though more reluctantly.
"How she ever got through it I'm not pretending to say," declared Lawler, grimly. "But she did it, and the frost didn't get her, much. She'll be fresh as a daisy in a couple of hours."
The tall man—Link—had ceased his labors with the woman, and was standing near Lawler. He grinned at Lawler's words.