She looked at him. “Don’t you know me better than that, Mr. Falkner?” she said gently.
He mumbled what might be taken either for an apology or for an oath.
“That’s all right. I dare say I wouldn’t be very trustful myself if I had been through what you have.” Ruth tossed him a smiling nod and dismissed the subject. “But we’re not down at the ranch yet. How long is this storm likely to last, Mr. Falkner?”
“It will blow itself out before morning. Too early in the season for it to last. I reckon it’s only a one-day blizzard.”
“You don’t think there will be any trouble about getting down to-morrow, do you?” she asked anxiously. “I’m not worried about myself, but I’ve got to get food for Baby.”
“Depends on the snow,” he said sulkily. “If it keeps on, you can’t break trail and carry the kid.”
“Perhaps you could go with me; then you could cut out a horse and ride away after dark.”
“I don’t have to go down there. I can pick up a horse at Yerbys’.” He added grudgingly in explanation: “Me for the hills. I don’t want to get down into the valleys, where too many people are.”
At midnight the storm outside was still howling and the sleety snow was beating against the window. The wind, coming straight from the divide above, buffeted the snow clouds in front of it. Drifts sifted and shifted as the snow whirled with the changing gusts.
The young mother, crouched behind the stove with her baby asleep across her knees, drowsed at times and wakened again with a start to see half-shuttered eyes shining across at her from the other side of the fire. In the darkness of the night she was afraid. Those gleaming points of light, always focused on her, were too suggestive of a beast of prey. With that blizzard raging outside she was a thousand miles from help, beyond the chance of human aid in case of need.