"No, take nothing," answered Katrine, hastily; "we want nothing."
Talbot let the weapon slide back to its place, and they both bent down and lifted the corpse between them. Talbot walked backwards over the cabin door behind him. It was dark outside—a thick, pitchy darkness, with only a grey glare close to the ground from the snow.
"Let's take him to the gulch," whispered Katrine, "and send him down it; it will worry Stephen so if he sees him again."
It was only a few yards to the edge of the ravine; they moved towards it cautiously and stopped upon the brink.
"Are you ready?" Talbot asked in a low tone, and Katrine whispered back "Yes." There was a heavy thud, then a soft rolling sound, and then silence, as the drift snow in the bottom of the gulch received and closed over its gift. They waited a second, then Talbot stretched out his hand towards her, found her arm in the darkness, and they both walked back together.
"It's a pity Steve is so sensitive," said Katrine, plaintively. "I just saved him, and his house, and his precious gold, and everything, to-night, and he does not like me a bit for it."
"I think you are a very brave little girl," said Talbot, softly.
"Do you?" returned Katrine, in a pleased voice; and Talbot felt that she turned her face and looked up at him in the darkness. "Steve and I don't fit very well, do we?" she added, with a sigh; "and he does not fit this life. Somehow, I don't believe we shall ever leave this place alive—I have a presentiment we shan't. You will—you'll make a success and go back; but we shan't."
Talbot did not answer, as they were at the cabin.
Stephen met them at the door as they came in, with a white stricken face. "Where have you put it?" he asked in an awed, trembling whisper.