"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.
A tired smile lit up the shadows of weariness under her soft, dark eyes.
"Boiled oats, plum pudding, and chocolates," she told him.
"We have plenty of food on the sled. I"ll bring it at once."
She nodded, and turned to go to the cabin. He watched for a moment the lilt in her walk. An expression from his reading jumped to his mind.
Melodious feet! Some poet had said that, hadn"t he? Surely it must have been Sheba of whom he was thinking, this girl so virginal of body and of mind, free and light-footed as a caribou on the hills.
Gordon returned to the sled and drove the team up the draw to the cabin.
The three who had been marooned came to meet their rescuer.
"You must "a" come right through the storm lickitty split," Swift.w.a.ter said.
"You"re right we did. This side pardner of mine was h.e.l.l-bent on wrestling with a blizzard," Holt answered dryly.
"Sorry you broke your laig, Gid."
"Then there"s two of us sorry, Swift.w.a.ter. It"s one of the best laigs I"ve got."
Sheba turned to the old miner impulsively. "If you could be knowing what I am thinking of you, Mr. Holt,--how full our hearts are of the grat.i.tude--" She stopped, tears in her voice.
"Sho! No need of that, Miss. He dragged me along." His thumb jerked toward the man who was driving. "I"ve seen better dog punchers than Elliot, but he"s got the world beat at routin" old-timers out of bed and persuadin" them to kick in with him and buck a blizzard. Me, o" course, I"m an old fool for comin"--"
The dark eyes of the girl were like stars in a frosty night. "Then you"re the kind of a fool I love, Mr. Holt. I think it was just fine of you, and I"ll never forget it as long as I live."
Mrs. Olson had cooked too long in lumber and mining camps not to know something about bone-setting. Under her direction Gordon made splints and helped her bandage the broken leg. Meanwhile Swift.w.a.ter Pete fed his horses from the grain on the sled and Sheba cooked an appetizing breakfast. The aroma of coffee and the smell of frying bacon stimulated appet.i.tes that needed no tempting.
Holt, propped up by blankets, ate with the others. For a good many years he had taken his luck as it came with philosophic endurance. Now he wasted no time in mourning what could not be helped. He was lucky the ice slide had not hit him in the head. A broken leg would mend.
While they ate, the party went into committee of the whole to decide what was best to be done. Gordon noticed that in all the tentative suggestions made by Holt and Swift.w.a.ter the comfort of Sheba was the first thing in mind.
The girl, too, noticed it and smilingly protested, her soft hand lying for the moment on the gnarled one of the old miner.
"It doesn"t matter about me. We have to think of what will be best for Mr. Holt, of how to get him to the proper care. My comfort can wait."
The plan at last decided upon was that Gordon should make a dash for Smith"s Crossing on snowshoes, where he was to arrange for a relief party to come out for the injured man and Mrs. Olson. He was to return at once without waiting for the rescuers. Next morning he and Sheba would start with Holt"s dog team for Kusiak.
Macdonald had taught Sheba how to use snowshoes and she had been an apt pupil. From her suitcase she got out her moccasins and put them on.
She borrowed the snowshoes of Holt, wrapped herself in her parka, and announced that she was going with Elliot part of the way.
Gordon thought her movements a miracle of supple lightness. Her lines had the swelling roundness of vital youth, her eyes were alive with the eagerness that time dulls in most faces. They spoke little as they swept forward over the white snow-wastes. The spell of the great North was over her. Its mystery was stirring in her heart, just as it had been when her lips had turned to his at the sunrise. As for him, love ran through his veins like old wine. But he allowed his feelings no expression. For though she had come to him of her own accord for that one blessed minute at dawn, he could not be sure what had moved her so deeply. She was treading a world primeval, the wonder of it still in her soft eyes. Would she waken to love or to disillusion?
He took care to see that she did not tire. Presently he stopped and held out his hand to say good-bye.
"Will you come back this way?" she asked.