RUTH, weak and shaken from her struggle with the storm, stood in bewildered amazement near the door. A man was facing her, in his hands a rifle. He stood crouched and wary, like a wolf at bay.
The man was Falkner.
“Any more of you?” he demanded. Not for an instant had his eyes relaxed.
“No.”
“Sure of that?”
She nodded, too much exhausted for speech.
“Fine!” he went on, lowering his gun slowly. “We’ll be company for each other. Better shut the door.”
Instead, she staggered forward to the table and put down the bundle of shawls. Her arms were as heavy as though they were weighted. She sank down on the long bench in front of the table.
Like many deserted mining cabins, this one still held the home-made furniture the prospector had built with a hammer and a saw. In one corner was a rusty old stove, just now red-hot from a crackling wood fire.
“Storm-bound, I reckon,” suggested the man, watching her with narrowed lids.