Newbold's departure was like the end of an era to her. The curtain dropped, when it rose again what was to be expected? There was no comfort except in the thought that she loved him. So long as their affections matched and ran together nothing else mattered. With the solution of it all next to her sadly beating heart she was still supremely confident that Love, or God—and there was not so much difference between them as to make it worth while to mention the One rather than the Other—would find the way.
Their leave taking had been singularly cold and abrupt. She had realized the danger he was apt to incur and she had exacted a reluctant promise from him that he would be careful.
"Don't throw your life away, don't risk it even, remember that it is mine," she had urged.
And just as simply as she had enjoined it upon him he had promised. He had given his word that he would not send help back to her but that he would bring it back, and she had confidence in that word. A confidence that had he been inclined to break his promise would have made it absolutely impossible. There had been a long clasp of the hands, a long look in the eyes, a long breath in the breast, a long throb in the heart and then—farewell. They dared no more.
Once before he had left her and she had stood upon the plateau and followed his vanishing figure with anxious troubled thought until it had been lost in the depths of the forest below. She had controlled herself in this second parting for his sake as well as her own. Under the ashes of his grim repression she realized the presence of live coals which a breath would have fanned into flame. She dared nothing while he was there, but when he shut the door behind him the necessity for self-control was removed. She had laid her arms on the table and bowed her head upon them and shook and quivered with emotions unrelieved by a single tear—weeping was for lighter hearts and less severe demands!
His position after all was the easier of the two. As of old it was the man who went forth to the battle field while the woman could only wait passively the issue of the fight. Although he was half blinded with emotion he had to give some thought to his progress, and there was yet one task to be done before he could set forth upon his journey toward civilization and rescue.
It was fortunate, as it turned out, that this obligation detained him. He was that type of a merciful man whose mercies extended to his beasts. The poor little burros must be attended to and their safety assured so far as it could be, for it would be impossible for Enid Maitland to care for them. Indeed he had already exacted a promise from her that she would not leave the plateau and risk her life on the icy stairs with which she was so unfamiliar.
He had gone to the corral and shaken down food enough for them which if it had been doled out to them day by day would have lasted longer than the week he intended to be absent; of course he realized that they would eat it up in half that time, but even so they would probably suffer not too great discomfort before he got back.
All these preparations took some little time. It had grown somewhat late in the morning before he started. There had been a fierce storm raging when he first looked out and at her earnest solicitation he had delayed his departure until it had subsided.
His tasks at the corral were at last completed; he had done what he could for them both, nothing now remained but to make the quickest and safest way to the settlement. Shouldering the pack containing his ax and gun and sleeping bag and such provisions as would serve to tide him over until he reached human habitations, he set forth. He did not look up to the hut; indeed, he could not have seen it for the corral was almost directly beneath it; but if it had been in full view he would not have looked back, he could not trust himself to; every instinct, every impulse in his soul would fain drag him back to that hut and to the woman. It was only his will and, did he but know it, her will that made him carry out his purpose.