Part 38 (1/2)

”Expect so.” Then, with a whoop, the man on the sled contradicted himself. ”No, by Moses, to d.i.c.k Fiddler's old cabin up the draw. That's where Swift.w.a.ter would aim for till the blizzard was over.”

”Where is it?” demanded his friend.

”Swing over to the right and follow the little gulch. I'll wait till you come back.”

Gordon dropped the gee-pole and started on the instant. Eagerness, anxiety, dread fought in his heart. He knew that any moment now he might stumble upon the evidence of the sad story which is repeated in Alaska many times every winter. It rang in him like a bell that where tough, hardy miners succ.u.mbed a frail girl would have small chance.

He cut across over the hill toward the draw, and at what he saw his pulse quickened. Smoke was pouring out of the chimney of a cabin and falling groundward, as it does in the Arctic during very cold weather.

Had Sheba found safety there? Or was it the winter home of a prospector?

As he pushed forward the rising sun flooded the earth with pink and struck a million sparkles of color from the snow. The wonder of it drew the eyes of the young man for a moment toward the hills.

A tumult of joy flooded his veins. The girl who held in her soft hands the happiness of his life stood looking at him. It seemed to him that she was the core of all that lovely tide of radiance. He moved toward her and looked down into the trench where she waited. Swiftly he kicked off his snowshoes and leaped down beside her.

The gleam of tears was in her eyes as she held out both hands to him.

During the long look they gave each other something wonderful to both of them was born into the world.

When he tried to speak his hoa.r.s.e voice broke. ”Sheba--little Sheba!

Safe, after all. Thank G.o.d, you--you--” He swallowed the lump in his throat and tried again. ”If you knew--G.o.d, how I have suffered! I was afraid--I dared not let myself think.”

A live pulse beat in her white throat. The tears brimmed over. Then, somehow, she was in his arms weeping. Her eyes slowly turned to his, and he met the touch of her surrendered lips.

Nature had brought them together by one of her resistless and unpremeditated impulses.

CHAPTER XXVII

TWO ON THE TRAIL

A stress of emotion had swept her into his arms. Now she drew away from him shyly. The conventions in which she had been brought up a.s.serted themselves. Sheba remembered that they had been carried by the high wave of their emotion past all the usual preliminaries. He had not even told her that he loved her. An absurd little fear obtruded itself into her happiness. Had she rushed into his arms like a lovesick girl, taking it for granted that he cared for her?

”You--came to look for us?” she asked, with the little shy stiffness of embarra.s.sment.

”For you--yes.”

He could not take his eyes from her. It seemed to him that a bird was singing in his heart the gladness he could not express. He had for many hours pushed from his mind pictures of her lying white and rigid on the snow. Instead she stood beside him, her delicate beauty vivid as the flush of a flame.

”Did they telephone that we were lost?”

”Yes. I was troubled when the storm grew. I could not sleep. So I called up the roadhouse by long distance. They had not heard from the stage.

Later I called again. When I could stand it no longer, I started.”

”Not on foot?”

”No. With Holt's dog team. He is back there. His leg is broken. A snow-slide crushed him this morning where we camped.”

”Bring him to the cabin. I will tell the others you are coming.”

”Have you had any food?” he asked.