Judith looked into his face with quick anxiety. His lips were blue. "You go chop some wood!" she ordered. "And when you are warmed up, you creep into the blankets with Wolf Cub and sleep for four hours. I'll keep the fire up. You are so tired, Doug, that the cold will get you if you aren't careful."
Douglas rose stiffly, and wearily began an attack on another cedar. But he had not taken a dozen strokes when he began to sink slowly to the ground. Judith, ran to him and helped him back to the blankets. Then she covered him snugly, and in a moment he was asleep.
It was midnight when she wakened Douglas. She was blue and shivering. "I'm a new man, Judith. Roll in quickly!" and he picked up the faithful ax.
It was long and biting cold till dawn. Douglas was too weary, too much menaced by the cold, to think coherently; for now, conscious of the depletion of his strength, even his new-found happiness could not blur the fact that he and Judith were playing with death on Black Devil Peak. He kept the fire going and fought the desire to sleep until, far below and to the east, the Indian Range turned black against a crimson sky. Then he awakened Judith. They made a hasty breakfast, then started the stiff and weary horses through the drifts toward Mormon Valley.
But Tom horse, facing homeward, needed none of the rowelling that he had demanded on the way up. The cold and wind were difficult to bear, for the two young people were inexpressibly weary of brain as well as body. By noon they made the valley. It was a slow-moving little outfit that finally limped past Nelson's corral and was greeted by a shout from the cabin door.
Elijah, his wife, and children, rushed out to meet them and led them into the big bed-living-room off the kitchen.
"Well," said Mrs. Nelson, "I knew she'd have to come back with you!"
CHAPTER XIX
HOME
Douglas was half blinded by snow-glare and wind, so it was several minutes before he observed an old man sitting eagerly erect on one of the beds. Doug started to his feet.