“I left it on my horse,” the old man answered, sheepishly.
The young fellow looked at Alice with a keen glitter in his eyes. “I’ll make answer myself,” he said; “I’m very particular about my barkers.”
Alice, as she heard his revolver’s answering word leap into the silent air and bound and rebound along the cliffs, was filled with a sudden fear that the sheriff might be guided back by the sound—and this indeed the fugitive himself remarked as he came back to his seat beside her.
“If he’s anywhere on this side of the divide he’ll sure come back. But I’ve done my best. The Lord God Almighty has dropped the snow down here and shut me in with you, and I’m not complaining.”
There was no answer to be made to this fatalism of utterance, and none to the worship of his eyes.
“Lift me up!” commanded Alice; “I want to look out and see if I can see anybody.”
The outlaw took her in his arms, supporting her in the threshold in order that she might see over the vast sea of white. But no human being was to be seen.
“Take me back—inside,” Alice said to the man who had her in his arms. “I feel cold here.”
Once again, and with a feeling that it was, perhaps, for the last time, he carried her back to her bench and re-enveloped her in her blankets.
“Stay here with me now,” she whispered to him, as she looked up into his face.