“Yes,” he smiled’ from the doorway. “Come here, little partner.”
And when she had obediently joined him her eye followed his finger up the mountain-trail to a bend round which men and horses were coming.
“It’s a relief-party,” he said, and caught up his field-glasses to look them over more certainly. Two men on horseback, leading a third animal, were breaking a way down the trail, black spots against the background of white. “I guess Fort Salvation’s about to be relieved,” he added grimly, following the party through the glasses.
She touched the back of his hand with a finger. “Are you glad?” she asked softly.
“No, by Heaven!” he cried, lowering his glasses swiftly.
As he looked into her eyes the blood rushed to his brain with a surge. Her face turned to his unconsciously, and their lips met.
“And I don’t even know your name,” she murmured.
“Waring Ridgway; and yours?”
“Aline Hope,” she said absently. Then a hot Rush ran over the girlish face. “No, no, I had forgotten. I was married last week.”
The gates of paradise, open for two days, clanged to on Ridgway. He stared out with unseeing eyes into the silent wastes of snow. The roaring in his ears and the mountainsides that churned before his eyes were reflections of the blizzard raging within him.