"Yes."
He had helped her up. They stood there silent what seemed a long time; then he spoke:
"I've come here often since that time. It's been a sort of a church—one that no one likely ever set foot in but you and me." He paused as if in hesitation; then continued: "I've wished often I could see you here again in the same place, just because I got so fond of it; and I don't know what you think of it, but this little bit of the mountain has something witched in it for me. I felt in the dark when my feet touched it, and I have a fancy, after it's all over, to be brought up here and laid where we stood that morning."
"Jack," and her other hand was reached impulsively to his, "what's the matter—what makes you speak like that now?"
"I don't know. The idea came strong to me back there, and I felt as if you—you—were the only one I could tell it to, for you know nearly all now—all the bad in me, too; yet you've never been the girl to draw away or keep back your hand if you felt I needed it. Ah, my girl, you are one in a thousand!"
He was speaking in the calmest, most dispassionate way, as if it was quite a usual thing to indulge in dissertations of this sort, with the snow slowly covering them. Perhaps he was right in thinking the place witched.
"You've been a good friend to me," he continued, "whether I was near or far—MacDougall told me things that proved it; and if my time should come quick, as many a man's has in the Indian country, I believe you would see I was brought here, where I want to be."
"You may be sure of it," she said earnestly; "but I don't like to hear you talk like that—it isn't like you. You give me a queer, uncanny feeling. I can't see you, and I am not sure it is Jack—nika tillikum—I am talking to at all. If you keep it up, you will have me nervous."
He held her hand and drew it up to his throat, pressing his chin against the fingers with a movement that was as caressive as a kiss.
"Don't you be afraid," he said gently; "you are afraid of nothing else, and you must never be of me. Come, come, my girl, if we're to go, we'd better be getting a move on."