But she took one vain precaution. "You promise to take me to my father. You'll not—be like him." A lift of the head indicated the man who had just gone out.
"He's a fool. I'm not. That's the difference." He shrugged his shoulders. "Make your own choice. If you'd rather stay here—"
But she had made it. She was getting hurriedly into her furs and was putting on her mittens. Already she had adjusted the snowshoes.
"We'd better hurry," she urged. "He might come back."
"It'll be bad luck for him if he does," the gambler said coolly. "You ready?"
She nodded that she was.
In another moment they were out of the warm room and into the storm. The wind was coming in whistling gusts, carrying with it a fine sleet that whipped the face and stung the eyeballs. Before she had been out in the storm five minutes, Jessie had lost all sense of direction.
Whaley was an expert woodsman. He plunged into the forest, without hesitation, so surely that she felt he must know where he was going. The girl followed at his heels, head down against the blast.
Before this day she had not for months taken a long trip on webs. Leg muscles, called into use without training, were sore and stiff. In the darkness the soft snow piled up on the shoes. Each step became a drag. The lacings and straps lacerated her tender flesh till she knew her duffles were soaked with blood. More than once she dropped back so far that she lost sight of Whaley. Each time he came back with words of encouragement and good cheer.
"Not far now," he would promise. "Across a little bog and then camp.
Keep coming."