They put a mile and a half between that fire and the next. Vane was no longer weakening. He was strengthening in heart, muscles and spirit gradually but steadily, despite the drag of the snow on his legs and a decided sense of neglect under his belt. He was working back to the pink of condition, throwing off at every forward step something of the effects of his difficult journey with the Danglers. He was recovering by those very efforts which his enemies had reckoned on to work his undoing. But the young woman was tiring. It was Vane who gathered fuel and cleared away the snow and built the third fire. They rested there for twenty minutes, seated close together. She snuggled her head against his shoulder and slept a little.
The snowfall had ceased by that time, the close gray blanket of cloud had thinned everywhere, had been lifted from the horizon at one corner, and now a desolate and subdued illumination seeped across the white and black world. The air, still motionless, was now dry and bitterly cold.
During the third stage of their homeward journey, Joe dragged her snowshoes heavily, and her pulls on Vane’s hands became feebler at every drift. She was sleepy, bone-tired and weak with hunger. Backwoods girl though she was, she was not seasoned to hardship as was her companion. But she continued to recognize the landmarks of the right way.
Their halts and little fires fell more and more frequently and closer and closer together. At last a bitter lash of wind struck and sent a thin wisp of snow glinting and running like spray. They came upon a narrow wood road well beaten by hoofs and bob-sled shoes beneath the four-inch skim of new snow.
“Which way?” asked Vane.
She pointed. “Straight to Larry Dent’s place,” she said.
Then he removed her webs, crouched and hitched her up on his back. She made no protest. “This is how I save your life,” she said, and instantly closed her eyes in sleep. Her arms were about his neck. They clung tight even in her sleep. Her cheek was against his ear. He staggered several times, but he hadn’t far to go. As he reached the kitchen door—the only door—of Larry Dent’s little gray habitation, an icy wind swooped down from the shuddering treetops and filled the whole world with a white suffocation of snow. He pushed open the door, staggered across the threshold, and stumbled to his knees at the large feet of the dumbfounded Mrs. Dent, with his precious burden still secure and asleep on his back.
“See what’s blew in,” said Larry, who was seated beside the stove smoking his pipe. “Shet the door,” he added.
Joe awoke and slipped from Vane’s shoulders. Vane remained on hands and knees, breathing deep. Mrs. Dent pulled herself together, went over, and shut the door against the flying drift. Larry shook the ashes from his pipe, and said. “Glad to see you, Miss Hinch; an’ also yer friend—or is he a hoss?”
Then Joe began to laugh and cry; and, still laughing and crying, she ran to Vane and helped him into a rocking chair, and kissed him again and again right there in front of the Dents.