"And that dread and hopelessness are just as much danger signals as the sound of Simon's horse behind us. It means that the cold and the snow and the fear are getting the better of us. Linda, it's a race with death. Don't misunderstand me or disbelieve me. It isn't Simon alone now. It's the cold and the snow and the fear. The thing to do is to make camp, keep as warm as we can in our blankets, and push on in the morning. It's two full days' ride, going fast, the best we can go—and God knows what will happen before the end."
"Then turn off the trail, Bruce," the girl told him.
"I don't know that we're even on the trail."
"Turn off, anyway. As long as we stay together—it doesn't matter."
She spoke very quietly. Then he felt a strange thing. A warmth which even that growing, terrible cold could not transcend swept over him. For her arms had crept out under his arms and encircled his great breast, then pressed with all her gentle strength.
No word of encouragement, no cheery expression of hope could have meant so much. Not defeat, not even the long darkness of death itself could appall him now. All that he had given and suffered and endured, all the mighty effort that he had made had in an instant been shown in its true light, a thing worth while, a sacrifice atoned for and redeemed.
They headed off into the thickets, blindly, letting the horse choose the way. They felt him turn to avoid some object in his path—evidently a fallen tree—and they mounted a slight ridge or rise. Then they felt the wet touch of fir branches against their cheeks.
Bruce stopped the horse and both dismounted. Both of them knew that under the drooping limbs of the tree they would find, at least until the snows deepened, comparative shelter from the storm. Here, rolled in their blankets, they might pass the remainder of the night hours.
Bruce tied the horse, and the girl unrolled the blankets. But she did not lay them together to make a rude bed,—and the dictates of conventionality had nothing whatever to do with it. If one jot more warmth could have been achieved by it, these two would have lain side by side through the night hours between the same blankets. She knew, however, that more warmth could be achieved if each of them took a blanket and rolled up in it; thus they would get two thicknesses instead of one and no openings to admit the freezing air. When this was done they lay side by side, economizing the last atom of warmth.
The night hours were dreary and long. The rain beat into the limbs above them, and sometimes it sifted through. At the first gray of dawn Bruce opened his eyes.