With his strong arms he half-lifted her and laid her in his warm place. She yielded to his strength, sleepily and gratefully, and he drew the blankets about her shoulders. The touch of his hand was in some way wonderful,—so strong, so comforting. Then, reeling only a little, he groped his way to the bed she had made upon the floor.
"Good night," he called, when he had pulled his blankets up. Guided by a hope that flooded his heart with tremulous anticipations, he held out his hand in the darkness toward her.
As if by a miracle, her own hand came stealing into his. No man could tell by what unity of longing they had acted: but neither seemed surprised to find the other's, waiting in the darkness. It was simply the Mystery that all men see and no man understands.
He held the little hand in his for just a breath, as a man might hold a holy thing that a prophet had blessed. Then he let it go.
"Good night, Bill," she told him sleepily.
In the hours of refreshing slumber that lasted full into the next morning there was but one curious circumstance. In the full light of morning it seemed to him that he heard the faint prick of a rifle, far away. The truth was that for all his heavy sleep, some of his guardian senses were awake to receive impressions, and the sound was a reality. It was curiously woven into the fabric of his dreams.
There were four shots, one swiftly upon another. Four,—and the figure four had a puzzling, yet sinister significance to his mind. He didn't know what it was: he had a confused sense of some sort of an inner warning, an impression of impending danger and treachery. Who was it that had held up four fingers somewhere in his experience, and what manner of signal had it been? But Bill didn't fully waken. His dreams ran on, confused and troubled.
XXVII
The same rifle shots that brought bad dreams to Bill had a much more lucid meaning for Joe Robinson and Pete the Breed, the two Indians that were occupying Harold's cabin. The wind bore toward them from Harold's new abode, the rifle was of heavy caliber, and the sound came clear and unmistakable through the stillness. They looked from one to the other.