Sucatash rewarded her with an admiring glance. “Afraid we’re headed into it,” he said. “Better turn back?” 208
“It will take more than storms to turn me back,” she answered.
Sucatash nodded and turned again to look at the sky turning gray and gradually blackening above the dim line of the ridge. Even as they watched it, the sky seemed to descend upon the crest and to melt it. The outlines became vague, broken up, changed.
“Snowing up there,” he said. “By’n by, it’ll be snowin’ down here. Snow ain’t so bad—but——”
“But what?”
“She drifts into this here cañon pretty bad. There ain’t no road and down hereaways where these rocks make the goin’ hard at the best of times, the drifts sure stack up bad.”
“What is it that you mean, Monsieur Sucatash?”
“I mean that we ain’t goin’ to have no trouble gettin’ in, mad’mo’selle, but we may have a fierce time gettin’ out. In two days the drifts will be pilin’ up on the divide and the trail on the other side, and in a coupla days more they’ll be blockin’ the cañon down this a way.”
Solange shrugged her shoulders. “We have food,” she answered. “At any rate, I am going on. I have promised that I would meet Monsieur de Launay in this cañon. I cannot keep him waiting.”
Sucatash accepted her ultimatum without protest. But, after a momentary silence, he turned once more in his saddle. 209