The Black Pearl Read online

  CHAPTER XIII

  The morning dawned, but the Sheriff and his aids, their numbersconsiderably increased by the various masculine inhabitants of Colinawho had joyously proffered their assistance--welcoming anything thatpromised a little excitement after the wearing monotony of thewinter--were still seeking Jose, who seemed to have vanished in somemanner only to be explained as miraculous.

  Gallito, Bob Flick, Pearl and Hugh, Mrs. Nitschkan and Mrs. Thomas hadall been taken to the village hotel and were there under guard, whileSeagreave, also under guard, was permitted to remain temporarily, atleast, in his cabin.

  The reason for this was that the sheriff was beginning to turn overcertain rather vexing questions in his mind. Suppose, for instance, Joseshould really have made his escape, impossible as that feat appeared,what definite, tangible proof had he that the crop-eared bandit hadreally been harbored by Gallito? Only some vague statements made by awoman to Hanson, a woman who thought that she had overheard aconversation or several conversations between Gallito and Bob Flick.There had undoubtedly been some one, some one whose interest it was notto be caught, as the events of the previous night showed, but theexplanation they had all given, Flick, Gallito, Hugh, Seagreave and thewomen, had struck the sheriff as extremely plausible, far moreplausible, in fact, than Hanson's story that Crop-eared Jose had beensecreted for months at a time in Gallito's cabin.

  The explanation which Gallito and all of his group had given was this. Ayounger brother of Gallito, Pedro by name, had been visiting him forsome time. This youth had led a somewhat irregular life both in Spainand in this country, and had become involved in several more or lessserious affairs; more, so Gallito averred, from a certain wildness andrecklessness of nature than from any criminal instincts. Several of hiscompanions had been arrested and, fearing that he would be also, he hadfled to Colina and begged Gallito to shelter him until it was safe forhim to go to work in one of the mines.

  The night before he had been very anxious to see Pearl dance in public,and, not daring to sit in the audience for fear of being recognized bysome chance wayfarer, he had gained Pearl's consent to watch theentertainment from the safe seclusion of her dressing room.

  Both Flick and Seagreave, who were in Gallito's confidence, believedthat the boy's fears were greatly exaggerated, but when they saw thesheriff and all of his deputies in the hall their curiosity was aroused.Flick had then gone over to speak to Hanson and Hanson's conversationhad convinced him that Pedro was really in danger and would be arrestedbefore the evening was over. They then devised the plan of having himescape in Pearl's dancing dress and long cloak, meaning to drive him upthe hill and let him take his chances of eluding his would-be captors inthe forest surrounding Gallito's cabin. But he had slipped out of thecart a short distance up the hill. Seagreave believed that there were apair of snow-shoes in the bottom of the cart, which had disappeared.That was all any of them could say.

  But when Seagreave pointed out to the sheriff that if no one remained ineither his or Gallito's cabin, it was extremely likely that bothdwellings would be looted before nightfall, also that without the firesmade and kept up the provisions would freeze and that with a guard overhim, he would be as easy to lay hands on as if he were down at the hotelwith the rest, the sheriff gravely considered the matter and wasdisposed to yield the point. As Seagreave remarked, he certainly had notmastered the art of flying and he knew no other way by which he mightescape. "Poor Pedro!" he sighed.

  "You bet it's poor Pedro," said the sheriff grimly. "Why, you know aswell as I do, Seagreave, that there ain't no way on God's green earthfor that boy to make a getaway. Of course, he's given us a lot ofbother, what with that damned snow falling again last night and coveringup any tracks he might make, but we're bound to get him. Why, a littlearmy, if it had enough ammunition, could hold Colina against the world.When you got a camp that's surrounded by canons about a thousand footdeep, how you going to get into it, if the folks inside don't want you?Now, take that, boy! How's he going to strike the main roads and thebridges in the dead of night, especially when the bridges is all socovered over with drifts that you can't see 'em by day? And, anyway, thecrust of the snow won't hold him in lots of places. 'Course he mayflounder 'round some, but there's no possible chance for him, and I'mthinking that the coyotes'll get him before we do."

  To this Seagreave agreed, and after the sheriff had further relieved hisfeelings by some vitriolic comments upon Hanson, he granted himpermission to look after the two cabins, and indifferently ordered thedeputy in charge to go down the hill and get his breakfast at the hotel,remarking with rough humor that he'd leave Seagreave the prisoner of themountain peaks and he guessed they'd keep him safe all right.

  So the two men, their appetites sharpened by a night spent in searchingfor the fugitive, took their way down toward the village, and it was notlong thereafter that Pearl, having secured permission to go up to thecabin and make some changes in her clothing, wearily climbed the hill.The lacks in her costume had been temporarily supplied by theinn-keeper's wife, but these makeshifts irked her fastidious spirit.

  She had suggested that Mrs. Nitschkan and Mrs. Thomas go with her, butthey were too thoroughly enjoying the limelight in which they foundthemselves to consider trudging up to their isolated cabin. Mrs. Thomas,in a pink glow of excitement, cooed and smiled and fluttered her lashesat half a dozen admirers, while Mrs. Nitschkan recounted to aninterested group just where and how she had shot her bears.

  "Say, have you took in the sheriff?" Mrs. Thomas found occasion towhisper to Mrs. Nitschkan. "He's an awful good looker, an' I think hegot around that hall so stylish last night."

  "What eyes he's got ain't for you," answered the gypsy cruelly. "He'skept his lamps steady on Pearl."

  "That's all you know about it," returned Mrs. Thomas with some spirit."He sat beside me at the table this morning and squeezed my hand twicewhen I passed him the flap-jacks. He's a real man, he is, an' likes awoman to be a woman, an' not a grizzly bear like you or a black pantherlike that Pearl."

  Pearl's progress up the hill was necessarily slow. The wagons had cutthe snow into great ruts which made walking difficult, and where it wassmoother it was exceedingly slippery. But her weariness soon vanishedunder the stimulus of the fresh morning air. Even the exertion ofdancing the evening before and the night of excitement which followedhad left no trace. She was, indeed, a tireless creature and supple as awhalebone. So, after a few moments' exercise in the exhilaratingly pureair, the sparkle returned to her eye, the color to her cheek, and herstep had regained its usual light buoyancy.

  Although March had come with its thaws, there was no suggestion ofspring in the landscape. From the white, monotonous expanse of snow rosebleak, skeleton shapes of trees lifting bare, black boughs to thesnow-sodden clouds. Upon either side of the road lay a forest ofdesolation--varied only by the sad, dull green of the wind-blownpines--which stretched away and away until it became a mere blue shadowas unsubstantial as smoke on the mountain horizon; and yet spring, stillinvisible and to be denied by the doubting, was in the air, with all itssoft intimations of bud and blossom and joyous life; and spring was inPearl's heart as she hastened up the hill toward Seagreave. It brushedher cheek like a caress, it touched her lips like a song.

  When she was about a quarter of a mile up from the village she crossed alittle bridge which spanned a deep and narrow crevasse, a gash whichcleft the great mountain to its foundation. Pearl lingered here a momentto rest, and, leaning her arms on the railing, looked down curiouslyinto the mysterious depths so far below.

  The white walls of the sharp, irregular declivity reflected many cold,prismatic lights, and down, far down where the eye could no longerdistinguish shapes and outlines, there lay a shadow like steam from somevast, subterranean cauldron, blue, dense, impenetrable. It fascinatedPearl and she stood there trying to pierce the depths with her eye,until at last, recalled to herself by the chill in the wind, she againturned and hastened up the hill. But before seeking Seagreave and askinghim
to share his breakfast with her, she followed the instincts of herinherent and ineradicable coquetry and, stopping at her father's cabin,made a toilet, slipping into one of her own gowns and rearranging herhair. Then, throwing a long cape about her and adjusting her mantilla,she closed the door behind her and turned into the narrow trail whichled at sharp right angles to the road to Saint Harry's cabin. It was,Pearl reflected, almost like walking through the tunnel of a mine; thesnow walls on either side of her were as high as her head. Occasionallythe green fringes of a pine branch tapped her cheek sharply with theirrusty needles. Then the tunnel widened to a little clearing where stoodthe cabin, picturesque with the lichened bark of the trees on therough-hewn logs.

  Seagreave had evidently seen her coming, for before she lifted her handto knock he threw open the door. "Ah," he cried, a touch of concern inhis voice, "I was just going down to the other cabin to make up thefires before you came. If you stopped there you must have found it cold,and you did stop," his quick eye noting the change she had effected inher costume.

  "Yes," she smiled, "they wouldn't let me come up the hill in Jose's coatand my rose petticoats, and I felt like a miner in the clothes they lentme." She had entered the cabin and had taken the chair he had pushed upnear the crackling, blazing fire of logs which he had just finishedbuilding to his satisfaction. The bond of sympathy between Seagreave andJose was probably that they both performed all manual tasks with a sortof beautiful precision. Gallito had characterized Harry's cabin as thecell of a monk. It was indeed simple and plain to austerity, and yet itpossessed the beauty of a prevailing order and harmony. Shelves his ownhands had made lined the rough walls and were filled with books; besidethe wide fireplace was an open cupboard, displaying his small andshining store of cooking utensils. For the rest a table or two and a fewchairs were all the room contained.

  It was the first time Pearl had ever been in the cabin, and, althoughshe maintained the graceful languor of her pose, lying back a littlewearily in her chair, yet her narrow, gleaming eyes pierced every cornerof the room, with avid eagerness absorbing the whole, and then returningfor a closer and more penetrating study of details, as if demanding fromthis room where he lived and thought a comprehensive revelation of him,a key to that remote, uncharted self which still evaded her.

  Seagreave himself, whose visible presence was, for the time, outside thefield of her conjecture, was busy preparing her breakfast, and now,after laying the cloth, he placed a chair for her at the table andannounced that everything was ready. He seated himself opposite her andPearl's heart thrilled at the prospect of this intimate _tete-a-tete_,the color rose on her cheek, her lashes trembled and fell.

  "Where's Jose?" she said hastily, to cover her slight, unusualembarrassment. "Tell me quick how you managed it. Neither Bob nor Popcould tell me because someone was always with us."

  "Ah," he said, "the gods were with us, but it was a wild chance, Iassure you. Fortunately, it was still snowing. Hugh and Jose werealready in the cart and everyone else had hastened home as fast as he orshe could go. The boys would not have waited for me if I had not dashedout just when I did, and I was glad enough to escape, for I was afraidthey would make some mistake in the road, Hugh not being able to see,and Jose familiar with the village only through our description of it. Iwasted no time in jumping into the cart and then drove like Jehu to theMont d'Or, fortunately on our way up the hill."

  "The Mont d'Or!" she interjected in surprise. "But why did you stopthere?"

  He shrugged his shoulders significantly. "It is Jose's shelter. He hadthe keys of the engine room. Your father had sent them to him, and withthem he let himself in, and then locked the door behind him. We got afair start, of course, but it was only a few moments after we reachedhere that three or four of the deputies were on our heels."

  "Ah," she cried, "they thought you had driven him here."

  "Naturally, and it is unnecessary to say that they spent several hoursin searching, not only this cabin, but your father's and Mrs.Nitschkan's to boot, and also the stable yonder." He pointed to a littleshed farther up the hill where he kept his horse and cart. He held outhis coffee cup for her to refill and laughed heartily. "I have no doubtthat they will return at intervals during the day to see if there isn'tsome tree-top or ledge of rock that they may have overlooked; but atpresent they are too busy exploring every nook and cranny of the variousmines, especially the Mont d'Or."

  She put down the coffee pot with a clatter and threw herself back in herchair with a gesture of intense disappointment. "Then surely they willfind Jose!" she cried.

  "Oh, you do not know," he exclaimed. "Wait; it was stupid of me not tohave explained. Your father is a wonderful man. He overlooks nothing. Heforesaw that in spite of all precautions, Jose--and other friends ofhis," there was a trace of hesitation in his tones in speaking to her ofher father's chosen companions, "might be trapped here in the wintertime when they could not escape over the one or two secret trails whichhe knows and which he has shown Jose. So, long ago, working secretly andovertime in the Mont d'Or, he hollowed out a small chamber. It is aboveone of the unworked stopes and its entrance defies detection."

  "But are you sure?" she interjected earnestly. "Have you seen ityourself?"

  "Yes, I was with Jose the first time Gallito showed it to him. Then he,your father, took us over the other parts of the mine and brought usback to the same spot to see if we could discover the hiding place forourselves. I assure you we could not. Neither Jose nor myself likedbeing baffled in that way, for it seemed to us that we went over everyinch of the ground, and your father stood there laughing at us in thatsarcastic way of his. Finally we gave up the search and Gallito markedit, so that it might be found in a hurry. It is above one's head and thewall is too smooth to climb in order to reach it--"

  "How can Jose get in then?" interrupted Pearl.

  "Jose has a key to your father's locker, and in that locker he keeps arope ladder. Jose throws up the ladder and the hooks catch on a dark,narrow little ledge; climbing up to this, he finds a small opening; hewriggles into this and finds himself in a small chamber which yourfather always keeps well provisioned. From this chamber a narrow passageleads up to the surface of the ground, thus providing two exits; but, ofcourse, the one above ground cannot be used now, owing to the snow."

  Pearl, who had been listening breathlessly to this description of Jose'shiding place, leaned back with a sigh of relief. "Then it looks as ifJose might be all right for the present. I do hope so for all oursakes."

  She sat silent for a few moments, apparently turning over something inher mind. When she spoke again her manner showed a certainembarrassment. "Do--do you know," she asked rather hesitatingly, "howthey got the information?"

  "No," he replied. "And that is what is puzzling all of us, but they haveso far refused to tell us."

  Almost she uttered a prayer of thankfulness. She very strongly suspectedthat the only way Hanson could have secured the information was throughher mother's inveterate habit of eavesdropping, a weakness of hers whichshe had failed to hide from her daughter, and a feeling almost ofgratitude came over Pearl that so far Hanson had been decent enough tospare that poor babbler.

  She took a last sip of coffee and rose from the table. "I must go downto the other cabin," she said, reluctance in her heart, if not in hervoice.

  "I will go with you"--Seagreave rose with alacrity to accompanyher--"and get the fires builded. It should really have been done longago. But what am I thinking of? Wait a moment." He clapped his hand tohis pocket. "One never knows what avenues of cleverness and cunning agreat temptation may open up." He laughed a little. "On that wild driveto the Mont d'Or I insisted on Jose removing your necklace and all yourrings with which he had decked himself. I dare say it cost himimmeasurable pangs, but he had no time to express them. As I was drivinghe passed them over to Hugh, and when we reached here Hugh gave them tome. He explained that in attempting to give them to you he might beseen, and if he were it might lead to some embarrassing questions."<
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  He drew from his pocket first the emeralds and then the rings, layingthem carefully upon the table, where they formed a glittering heap.

  "I don't think it is possible that Jose withheld anything," Seagreavecontinued. "He would not dare, and I am quite sure that neither Hughienor I dropped even a ring when he gave them to me. Still I would be verymuch obliged if you will look them over and see if they are intact."

  At the sight of her treasures Pearl uttered an exclamation of pleasureand fingered them lovingly, laying the emeralds against her cheek with agesture that was almost a caress. "Thank you. Oh, it was good of you tothink of them at such a time and rescue them for me." Her soft, slidingvoice was warm with gratitude. "They are all here." She slipped therings on her fingers, her eyes dreaming on them. She fastened theemeralds about her neck and hid them beneath her gown, pressing themagainst her flesh as if she found pleasure in their cold contact.

  She lifted her eyes to him; her smile was languourously ardent;impulsively she caught his hand and held it for a moment against hercheek. He started and she felt him tremble. Then hastily he withdrew hishand, murmuring at the same time a confused, almost inarticulateprotest; but Pearl did not wait to hear it. She had risen abruptly and,catching up her cloak and wrapping it hastily about her, had opened thedoor before he could reach it and had stepped out into the snow.

  Seagreave, who had paused a moment to close the door behind them, heardher utter a sharp exclamation and turned quickly.

  "Dios!" she cried. "Dios! What is it?"

  She had fallen back against the wall of the cabin and was gazing abouther with a strange and startled expression. Seagreave's eye reflected itas he too stared about him with a look not yet of alarm but of wild,deep wonder. For the moment, at least, all things were the same. Abovethem the peaks towered whitely in the sullen, gray sky. On a level withtheir eyes, the illimitable forests of bare, black trees mingling withthe denser and more compact shapes of the evergreens, stretched awayover the hillsides, casting their long blue shadows on the snow-coveredground until they wore blurred indistinguishably in the violet haze ofdistance. Unchanged, and yet so strong was the presage of someunimagined and disastrous event, that when a long shiver ran through theearth Pearl screamed aloud, and, stumbling toward Seagreave, reached outgropingly for his hand.

  For the second that they waited the earth, too, seemed to wait, asolemn, awe-filled moment of incalculable change, a tense moment, as ifthe unknown, mysterious forces of nature were gathering themselvestogether for some mighty, unprecedented effort.

  Then shiver after shiver shook the ground, the earth trembled as if insome deep convulsion, the white peaks seemed bowing and bending--then aroar as of many waters, the air darkened and earth and sky seemed filledwith the mass of the mountains slipping down--down to chaos.

  Pearl had ceased to scream and had fallen to her knees, clingingdesperately to Seagreave. Her face was blanched white with terror, andshe was muttering incoherent prayers.

  As for Harry, he had forgotten her, forgotten himself, and was livingthrough moments or centuries, he knew not, which, of wonder and horror.

  And what a sight! It was not simply a great mountain of snow slippingthunderously down to the valleys beneath; but in its ever gatheringmomentum and incredible velocity it tore great rocks from the ground andeither snapped off trees as if they had been straws, or wholly uprootedthem, and now was a fast-flying mass of snow, earth, trees and rockswhirling and hurtling through the air.

  A huge rock had, as if forcibly detaching itself, flown off from theavalanche and buried itself in the ground only a few feet beyond Harryand Pearl, and more than one uprooted tree lay near them. Death hadmissed them by only a few paces.

  Not realizing her immunity even after the air had begun to clear, andstill panic-stricken and fearful of what might still occur, Pearlcontinued to moan and pray until Seagreave, who had been so dazed thathe had been almost in a state of trance, again became aware of herpresence and, partially realizing her piteous state of terror, liftedher in his arms and, wrapping them about her, endeavored to soothe herand allay her fears, although he had not yet sufficiently recoveredhimself to know fully what he was doing, and was merely following theinstinct of protection.

  It was impossible for him to realize the mundane again immediately afterthese undreamed of and supernormal experiences. Holding Pearl, who stillclung to him frantically, cowering and trembling against him, he leanedupon the rough, projecting walls of his cabin and gazed with awed andstill unbelieving eyes into this new and formless world, yet obscuredwith flying snow.

  Gradually as the air cleared he saw that a new world, indeed, lay beforethem. "Look, look, Pearl," he cried, hoping to rouse her from her stateof blind fright. "It has been an avalanche and it is over now."

  "No, no," she moaned, and buried her head more deeply in his shoulder."I dare not look up. It will come again."

  "No, it doesn't happen twice. It is over now and we are safe and thecabin is safe."

  And yet, in spite of himself, he sympathized with her fear more than hewould have admitted either to himself or her. Anything seemed possibleto him now. He had looked upon a miracle. He had seen those immutablepeaks, as stable as Time, bend and bow in their strange, cosmic dance,for the change in the position of one had created the illusory effect ofa change in all.

  "Come, look up, Pearl," he urged. "It is all over and everything ischanged. Look up and get accustomed to it."

  Everything was indeed changed. For a few yards before the cabin his pathwith its white, smooth walls was intact, but beyond that lay anincredibly smooth expanse of bare earth. The road was obliterated; thevast projecting rock ledges which had overshadowed it had disappeared.They had all been razed or else uprooted like the rocks and trees andcarried on in that irresistible rush. The light poured baldly down upona hillside bare and blank and utterly featureless. But far down the roadwhere the bridge had spanned the canon there rose a vast white mountain,effectually cutting them off from all communication with the villagebelow.

  Nothing remained of familiar surroundings. This was, indeed, a newworld. At last Seagreave roused himself from his stunned contemplationof it and bent himself to the task of coaxing Pearl to lift her head andgaze upon it, too.

  At last she did so, but at the sight of that bare and unfamiliarhillside her terrors again overcame her. "Come," she cried, dragging athis arm, "we must go--go--get away from here. Dios! Are you mad? It isthe end of the world. Come quickly."

  "Where?" asked Seagreave gently.

  "Home," she cried wildly. "To the church. We can at least dieblessedly."

  Seagreave shook his head, his eyes on that white wall--that snowmountain which rose from the edge of the crevasse and seemed almost totouch the sky. "Listen, Pearl," he spoke more earnestly now, as if toforce some appreciation of the situation upon her mind. "This cabin isthe only thing upon the mountain. The avalanche has carried everythingelse away."

  "Not my father's cabin, too," she peered down the hill curiously, yetfearfully, in a fascinated horror. "Oh, but it is true. It is gone. Oh,what shall we do? But we must get down to the camp. Come, come."

  But for once Seagreave seemed scarcely to hear her. He had leaned outfrom the sheltering wall and was scanning with a measuring andspeculative eye the white heap that rose from the edge of the canon andseemed almost to touch the lowering and sullen sky.

  "Thank God, the camp is safe," he murmured. "The canon must have savedit, or else it would have been wiped off the earth just as Gallito'scabin has been. But it has swept the bridge away, of course."

  "Oh, come." Pearl dragged at his sleeve. "I can't stay here. I amafraid."

  "Pearl," and there were both anxiety and tenderness in his voice. "Youmust understand. Try to realize that there is no way to get down."

  "But there must be some way," she insisted, "with snow-shoes--"

  He shook his head gently but definitely. "There is no way. We might aswell face it." He cast another long look at the sky. "It is
the seasonfor the thaws, the big thaws, but, even so, it will take time to meltdown that mountain out there. No, it is useless to argue," as Pearlbegan again her futile rebellion against the inexorable forces ofnature, "but what am I thinking of?" in quick self-reproach. "You mustnot stay out here in the cold any longer. Come." He threw open the cabindoor.

  But if Pearl heard him she gave no sign, but still leaned weakly, almostinertly, against the walls of the cabin, gazing down the hillside withdazed and still frightened eyes.

  Seeing her condition, Seagreave wasted no more words, but lifted her inhis arms and carried her into the room they had so recently left. Therehe placed her in a chair and pushed it near the fire and she satshivering and cowering, her hands outstretched to the blaze.

  The light from the fire streamed through the room and Pearl, cheered andrestored more by that homely and familiar radiance than by any words ofcomfort he might have uttered, gradually sank further and further backin her chair and presently closed her eyes. It seemed to him that sheslept. At first her rest was fitful, broken by exclamations and starts,but each time that she opened her eyes she saw the familiar andunchanged surroundings, and Seagreave sitting near her; and, reassured,her sleep became more natural and restful.

  When she awoke it was to find herself alone. Seagreave had left, but shecould hear him moving about in the next room, near at hand if she neededhim. He was evidently bringing in some logs for the fire.

  "As if nothing had happened," she muttered, "and things will go on justthe same. We shall eat; we shall sleep. How can it be?"

  She got up and began to walk up and down the room. She was young, shewas strong, and the shock of those few moments of wonder and horror hadalmost worn off. Her active brain was alert and normal again, and shethought deeply as she walked to and fro, considering all possible phasesof her present situation.

  Then, ceasing to pace back and forth, she leaned against the window andlooked out. The strange, new world lay before her, an earth bereft ofits familiar forests, and which must send forth from its teeming heart anew growth of tender, springtime shoots to cover its nakedness. And asshe gazed the sun burst through the gray clouds and poured down upon thewide, bare hillside an unbroken flood of golden splendor.

  Hearing a slight sound behind her, she turned quickly. Seagreave hadentered and, approaching the window, stood looking at the white slopingplain without.

  "I couldn't chop any more wood," he said. "It seemed too commonplaceafter this thing that we have seen. But you--how are you?"

  "I'm all right," she returned. But she did not meet his eyes; her blacklashes lay long on her cheek; her cheek burned. She realized in aconfused way that there was some change in their relative positions. Shehad always felt because of his reticence, his withdrawal into self, hisdiffidence in approaching her, easily mistress of any situation whichmight arise between them; but since those moments when they two hadgazed upon the avalanche, and she in her terror had flung herself uponhis breast, and had wrapped her arms about him and buried her face inhis shoulder, he had assumed not only the tone but the manner ofauthority and had adopted again a natural habit of command, dropped orlaid aside from indifference or inertia, but instinctively resumed whenthrough some powerful feeling he became again his normal self, alive andalert, vigorous and enthusiastic. It was as if he had suddenly awakenedto a whole world of new possibilities and new opportunities.

  Beneath his long, steady gaze her own eyelids fluttered and fell; hercheeks flushed a deeper rose; her heart beat madly. She was furious atherself for these revealing weaknesses, and yet she, too, was consciousof new, undreamed-of possibilities, sweet, poignantly sweet.

  "Pearl," his voice was low, shaken by the emotion which had overtakenboth of them, "do you know that, as far as you and I are concerned, weare the only living human beings in all our world?"

  She looked at him and, unknown to herself, her face still held its glowof rapture; her eyes were pools of love.

  Her little rill of laughter was broken and shaken as falling water. "Thesheriff didn't get us, and yet we're prisoners, prisoners of the snow."

  "And you, my jailer, will you be kind to me?" But there was nothingpleading in his tone. It rang instead with exultant triumph.

  "Why, Pearl"--a virile note of power as if some long-dreamed-of masterywere his at last swelled like a diapason through his voice--"we're infor a thaw, a big thaw, but it will take time to melt down that mountainout there in the crevasse; and you and I are here--alone--for afortnight, at least a fortnight." He emphasized the words, lingeringover them as if they afforded him delight.

  "A fortnight! Here! Alone with you!" she cried. "Never, never. Theremust be a way--" she murmured confusedly and ran to the window to hideher agitation and embarrassment, pulling the curtain hastily aside andlooking out unseeingly over the hills. She was trembling from head tofoot.

  The wind had risen and was wailing and shrieking over the bare hill andthe air was dim with flying snow; but the spring that hours before hadkissed her cheek and touched her lips like a song rose now in Pearl'sheart. She pressed her tightly clasped hands against her breast andclosed her eyes. A new world! And she and Harry were in it together--andalone.