"Thank God, the camp is safe," he murmured. "The cañon must have saved it, or else it would have been wiped off the earth just as Gallito's cabin has been. But it has swept the bridge away, of course."
"Oh, come." Pearl dragged at his sleeve. "I can't stay here. I am afraid."
"Pearl," and there were both anxiety and tenderness in his voice. "You must understand. Try to realize that there is no way to get down."
"But there must be some way," she insisted, "with snow-shoes—"
He shook his head gently but definitely. "There is no way. We might as well face it." He cast another long look at the sky. "It is the season for the thaws, the big thaws, but, even so, it will take time to melt down that mountain out there. No, it is useless to argue," as Pearl began again her futile rebellion against the inexorable forces of nature, "but what am I thinking of?" in quick self-reproach. "You must not stay out here in the cold any longer. Come." He threw open the cabin door.
But if Pearl heard him she gave no sign, but still leaned weakly, almost inertly, against the walls of the cabin, gazing down the hillside with dazed and still frightened eyes.
Seeing her condition, Seagreave wasted no more words, but lifted her in his arms and carried her into the room they had so recently left. There he placed her in a chair and pushed it near the fire and she sat shivering and cowering, her hands outstretched to the blaze.
The light from the fire streamed through the room and Pearl, cheered and restored more by that homely and familiar radiance than by any words of comfort he might have uttered, gradually sank further and further back in her chair and presently closed her eyes. It seemed to him that she slept. At first her rest was fitful, broken by exclamations and starts, but each time that she opened her eyes she saw the familiar and unchanged surroundings, and Seagreave sitting near her; and, reassured, her sleep became more natural and restful.
When she awoke it was to find herself alone. Seagreave had left, but she could hear him moving about in the next room, near at hand if she needed him. He was evidently bringing in some logs for the fire.
"As if nothing had happened," she muttered, "and things will go on just the same. We shall eat; we shall sleep. How can it be?"