ntains, the pressure of the starry
sky. Far off already across the flat, that small, dark figure moved. She
had left the road, which ran parallel with the mountain range, and was
walking over the hard, sparkling crust. It supported her weight, but
Dickie was not sure that it would do the same for his. He tried it
carefully. It held, and he followed the faint track of small feet. It did
not occur to him, dazed as he was by the fumes of whiskey and the heady
air, that the sight of a man in swift pursuit of her loneliness might
frighten Sheila. For some reason he imagined that she would know that he
was Sylvester's son, and that he was possessed only by the most sociable
and protective impulses.

He was, besides, possessed by a fateful feeling that it was intended that
out here in the brilliant night he should meet her and talk to her. The
adventurous heart of Dickie was aflame.

When the hurrying figure stopped and turned quickly, he did not
pause, but rather hastened his steps. He saw her lift her muff up to
her heart, saw her waver, then move resolutely toward him. She came
thus two or three steps, when a treacherous pitfall in the snow opened
under her frightened feet and she went down almost shoulder deep.
Dickie ran forward.

Bending over her, he saw her white, heart-shaped face, and its red mouth
as startling as a June rose out here in the snow. And he saw, too, the
panic of her shining eyes.

"Miss Arundel"--his voice came thin and tender, feeling its way
doubtfully as though it was too heavy a reality--"let me help you. You
_are_ Miss Arundel, aren't you? I'm Dickie--Dickie Hudson, Pap Hudson's
son. You hadn't ought to be scared. I saw you coming out alone and took
after you. I thought you might find it kind of lonesome up here on the
flat at night in all the moonlight--hearing the coyotes and all. And,
look-a-here, you might have had a time getting out of the snow. Oncet a
fellow breaks through it sure means a floundering time before a fellow
pulls himself out--"

She had given him a hand, and he had pulled her up beside him. Her smile
of relief seemed very beautiful to Dickie.

"I came out," she said, "because it looked so wonderful--and I wanted
to see--" She stopped, looking at him doubtfully, as though she
expected him not to understand, to think her rather mad. But he
finished her sentence.

"--To see the mountains, wasn't it?"

"Yes." She was again relieved, almost as much so, it seemed, as at the