He, too, lost his brightness. "Well, I'm not so anxious to keep up this kind of life. But if anybody changes me it will be you."
"Hush!" she warned with lifted finger.
He fell back, and after a little silence went out to wait upon the fire.
"It seems to me," said Peggy, reprovingly, "that you're too gracious with this mountaineer; he's getting presumptuous."
"He doesn't mean to be. It's his unsophisticated way. Anyhow, we can't afford to be captious to our host."
"That's true," admitted Peggy.
The night shut down with the snow still falling, but with a growing chill in the air.
"The flakes are finer," the outlaw announced, as he came in a little later. "That is a good sign. It is growing colder and the wind is changing. It will pinch hard before sun-up, and the worst of it, there's no way to warm the cabin. We can't have the door open to-night. I'm worried about you," he said to Alice. "If only those chumps had left a man-size ax!"
The two women understood that this night was to bring them into closer intimacy with the stranger than before. He could not remain outdoors, and though they now knew something of his desperate character, they had no fear of him. He had shown his chivalry. No one could have been more considerate of them, for he absented himself at Peggy's request instantly and without suggestion of jocularity, and when he came in and found them both in bed he said:
"I reckon I'll not make down to-night—you'll need all your blankets before morning"; and thereupon, without weighing their protests, proceeded to spread the extra cover over them.