Nash, on his part, knowing that she had broken with Belden, began to understand the tenderness, the anxious care of her face and voice, as she bent above young Norcross. As the night deepened and the cold air stung, he asked: “Have you plenty of blankets for a bed?”
“Oh yes,” she answered, “but I don’t intend to sleep.”
“Oh, you must!” he declared. “Go to bed. I will keep the fire going.”
At last she consented. “I will make my bed right here at the mouth of the tent close to the fire,” she said, “and you can call me if you need me.”
“Why not put your bed in the tent? It’s going to be cold up here.”
“I am all right outside,” she protested.
“Put your bed inside, Miss Berrie. We can’t let conventions count above timber-line. I shall rest better if I know you are properly sheltered.”
And so it happened that for the third time she shared the same roof with her lover; but the nurse was uppermost in her now. At eleven thousand feet above the sea—with a cold drizzle of fine rain in the air—one does not consider the course of gossip as carefully as in a village, and Berrie slept unbrokenly till daylight.
Nash was the first to arise in the dusk of dawn, and Berrie, awakened by the crackle of his fire, soon joined him. There is no sweeter sound than the voice of the flame at such a time, in such a place. It endows the bleak mountainside with comfort, makes the ledge a hearthstone. It holds the promise of savory meats and fragrant liquor, and robs the frosty air of its terrors.
Wayland, hearing their voices, called out, with feeble humor: “Will some one please turn on the steam in my room?”