Part 35 (2/2)
He fell back, and after a little silence went out to wait upon the fire.
”It seems to me,” said Peggy, reprovingly, ”that you're too gracious with this mountaineer; he's getting presumptuous.”
”He doesn't mean to be. It's his unsophisticated way. Anyhow, we can't afford to be captious to our host.”
”That's true,” admitted Peggy.
The night shut down with the snow still falling, but with a growing chill in the air.
”The flakes are finer,” the outlaw announced, as he came in a little later. ”That is a good sign. It is growing colder and the wind is changing. It will pinch hard before sun-up, and the worst of it, there's no way to warm the cabin. We can't have the door open to-night. I'm worried about you,” he said to Alice. ”If only those chumps had left a man-size ax!”
The two women understood that this night was to bring them into closer intimacy with the stranger than before. He could not remain outdoors, and though they now knew something of his desperate character, they had no fear of him. He had shown his chivalry. No one could have been more considerate of them, for he absented himself at Peggy's request instantly and without suggestion of jocularity, and when he came in and found them both in bed he said:
”I reckon I'll not make down to-night--you'll need all your blankets before morning”; and thereupon, without weighing their protests, proceeded to spread the extra cover over them.
Alice looked up at him in the dim light of the candle and softly asked: ”What will you do? You will suffer with cold!”
”Don't worry about me; I'm an old campaigner. I still have a blanket to wrap around my shoulders. I'll snooze in a corner. If you hear me moving around don't be worried; I'm hired to keep the fire going even if it doesn't do us much good inside.”
The chill deepened. The wind began to roar, and great ma.s.ses of snow, dislodged from the tall trees above the cabin, fell upon its roof with sounds like those of soft, slow footfalls. Strange noises of creaking and groaning and rasping penetrated to Alice's ears, and she cowered half in fear, half in joy of her shelter and her male protector. Men were fine animals for the wild.
She fell asleep at last, seeing her knight's dim form propped against the wall, wrapped in a blanket Indian-wise, his head bowed over the book she had given him, a candle smoking in his hand.
She woke when he rose to feed the fire, and the current of cold air which swept in caused her to cover her mouth with the blanket. He turned toward her.
”It's all over for sure, this time,” he said. ”It's cold and goin' to be colder. How are you standing it? If your feet are cold I can heat a stone. How is the hurt foot?” He drew near and looked down upon her anxiously.
”Very much easier, thank you.”
”I'm mighty glad of that. I wish I could take the pain all on myself.”
”You have troubles of your own,” she answered, as lightly as she could.
”That's true, too,” he agreed in the same tone. ”So many that a little one more or less wouldn't count.”
”Do you call my wound little?”
”I meant the foot was little--”
She checked him.
”I didn't mean to make light of it. It sure is no joke.” He added, ”I've made a start on the book.”
”How do you like it?”
”I don't know yet,” he answered, and went back to his corner.
She snuggled under her warm quilts again, remorseful, yet not daring to suggest a return of the blanket he had lent. When she woke again he was on his feet, swinging his arms silently. His candle had gone out, but a faint light was showing in the room.
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