Part 9 (1/2)
”Yes Even this cataract freezes, but it likely won't be safe to cross for some weeks--maybe clear into January or February That depends on the weather You see, Miss Tremont, we don't have the awful low teet further east and north We're on the wet side of the et the snoeek after week of it when you simply can't travel, and plenty of thirty and forty, soive it time And the snoill pack and crust late in the winter And then, in those clear, cold days, we can make a sled and mush out”
”And it means--we're tied up here for weeks--and maybe months?”
”That's it Just as sure as if we had iron chains around our ankles”
Then the girl's tears flowed again, unchecked Bill stood beside her, his shoulders drooping, but in no situation of his life had he ever felt more helpless, more incapable of aid ”Don't cry,” he pleaded ”Don't cry, Miss Tremont I'll take care of you Don't you knoill?”
Her grief rent hi he could say or do He drew the blankets higher about her
”Perhaps you can get soed ”Your body's torn to pieces, of course”
Fearful and lonely and irl cried herself to sleep Bill sat beside her a long time, and the snow sifted down in the forest and the silence lay over the land He left her at last, and for a while was busy a the supplies that he found on a shelf behind the stove And she wakened to find hientle as a woman's ”Do you think you can eat?” he asked ”I've warot coffee, too”
He had put the liquids in cups and had drawn the little table beside her bed She shook her head, but she softened at the swift look of disappointment in his face ”I'll take some coffee,” she told him
He held the cup for her, and she drank a little of the bracing liquid
Then she pushed the cup away
He waited beside a moment, curiously anxious ”Give me your hand,” he said
”Why?”
Cold was her voice, and cold the expression on her face It seemed to her that the lines of Bill's face deepened, and his dark eyes grew stern But in a moment the expression passed, and she knew she had wounded him ”Why do you think? I want to test your pulse”
He had seen that she was flushed, and he was in deadly fear that the plunge into the cold waters had worked an organic injury He took her soft, slender wrist in his hand, and she felt the pressure of his little finger against her pulsing arteries Then she saw the dark features light up
”You haven't any fever,” he told her joyfully ”You're just used up from the experience And God knows I can't blaain, and for a little while he was busy outside the cabin, cutting fuel for the night's blaze He stole in once to look at her and then turned again down the moose trail to the river He had been certain before that the others had gone; now he only wanted toafternoon was at an end when he returned He had gazed across the gray waters and called again and again, but except for the echo of his shout, the wilderness silence had been inviolate Virginia ake, but still miserable and dejected in her blankets They talked a little, softly and quietly, about their chances, but he saw that she was not yet in a frame of mind to look the situation squarely in the face
Then he cooked the last ,” she told hiain he proffered food ”I only want to die I wish I had died--in the river last night Months andbut death in the end”
He did not condeinative enough to understand her despair and sympathize with it He remembered the sheltered life she had always lived Besides, she was his Goddess; he could only humble himself before her
”But I won't let you die, Miss Tremont I'll care for you You won't even have to lift your hand, if you don't want to You'll be happier, though, if you do; it would break soraph on the stand, and soazines under your cot The weeks will pass soray as ashes ”I won't impose--any more of my company upon you--than you wish”
The response was instantaneous The girl's heart warmed; then she flashed hiive me,” she said ”I'll try to be brave I'll try to stiffen up I know you'll do everything you can to get ood to o to sleep”
He watched her, standing by her bed After all, sleep was the best thing for her--to knit her torn nerves and ht was falling He could see it already, gray against thepane The first day of their exile was gone
”I'll be all right in the ,” she told him sleepily ”And ives you a better chance to find Harold--and bring him back to me”
Bill nodded, but he didn't trust himself to speak
IX