She could conceive of no circumstances whereby her fate would be altered. She knew now, as well as she knew the fact of her own life, that she had been trapped and snared and cheated by a sardonic destiny. For the moment she wished she had never fought her way back to the cabin with Bill after yesterday's adventure, but that side by side in the drifts, they had yielded to the Shadow and the cold.
Through the dragging hours of afternoon, Harold seemed restless and uneasy. He smoked impatiently and was nervous and abstracted in the hours of talk. But the afternoon died at last. Once more the shadows lengthened over the snow; the dusk grew; the first, bright stars thrust through the gray canopy above them. Virginia went to the work of cooking supper,—the last supper in this little, unforgettable cabin in the snow.
Both Bill and Virginia started with amazement at the sound of tapping knuckles on the door. Harold's eyes were gleaming.
XXIX
Harold saw fit to answer the door himself. He threw it wide open; Virginia's startled glance could just make out two swarthy faces, singularly dark and unprepossessing, in the candlelight. She experienced a swift flood of fear that she couldn't understand: then forced it away as an absurdity.
"We—we mushin' over to Yuga—been over Bald Peak way," Joe said stumblingly. "Didn't know no one was here. Want a bunk here to-night."
"You've got your own blankets?"
"Yes. We got blankets."
"On your way home, eh? Well, I'll have to ask this lady."