Those questions, and the retrospection back of them, were with him as he went upward into the mountains to the north.
Another night was falling slowly, and the jewels of the far skies one by one slipped from their ether casket, and shone with impressive serenity on the crusted snow. Along the last ridge Mowitza bore for the last time her double burden. There was but a slope to descend, a sheltered cove to reach, and Snowcap would be given back to his kindred.
The glittering surface of the white carpet warmed into reflected lights as the moon, a soft-footed, immature virgin, stole after the stars and let her gleams be wooed and enmeshed in the receptive arms of the whispering pine. Not a sound broke through the peace of the heights. In their sublime isolation, they lift souls as well as bodies above the commonplace, and the rider, the stubborn keeper of so many of their secrets, threw back his head with a strange smile in his eyes as the last summit was reached—and reached in the light of peace. Was it an omen of good? He thought of that girl back in the valley who was willing to share this life of the hills with him. All things beautiful made him think of her, and the moon-kissed night was grand, up there above where men lived. He thought of her superb faith, not in what he was, but in what her woman's instinct told her it was possible for him to be. What a universe of loves in human hearts revolves about those unseen, unproven substances!
He thought of the time when she had lain in his arms as Snowcap was lying, and he had carried her over the hills in the moonlight. He was bitterly cold, but through the icy air there came the thrill and flush of that long-past temptation. He wondered what she would say when they told her how he had used his freedom. The conviction of her approval again gave that strange smile of elation to his eyes; and the cold and hunger were ignored, and his fatigue fell from him. And with the tenderness that one gives to a sleeping child, he adjusted with his wounded hands the blanket that slipped from the dead boy, raising one of the rigid arms the better to shroud it in the gay colors.
Then the peace of the heights was broken by a sharp report; the whiteness of the moonlight was crossed by the quick, red flash of death and Mowitza stopped still in her tracks, while her master, with that dead thing clasped close in his arms, lunged forward on her neck.
CHAPTER VII.
A REBEL.
Within the confines of Camp Kootenai there was a ripple of rejoicing. At last, after four days lost because of the snow, Major Dreyer had arrived, pushing on with all possible haste after meeting the runner—and, to the bewilderment of all, he rode into camp on one of the horses stolen almost a week ago.
"No mystery about it—only a little luck," he said in explanation. "I found him at Holland's as I came up. A white man belonging to the Blackfeet rode him in there several nights ago. The white man got drunk, picked a row, and got his pay for it. They gave him grave-room down there, and in the morning discovered that the beast had our brand, so gave him up to us as we came through."