owed painfully, but shaken
with dread shaped her question at last. "What--what did you find
out?"

He looked squarely into her eyes. "Nothing that you'll want to hear,
Miss Tremont," he told her soberly. "I went to the river bank and
looked across. They--they----"

"They are gone?" the girl cried.

"They've pulled freight. I could see the smoke of their fire--it was
just about out. Not a horse in sight, or a man. There's no chance for
a mistake, I'm afraid. I called and called, but no one answered."

The tears rushed to the girl's eyes, but she fought them back. There
was an instant of strained silence. "And what does it mean?"

"I don't know. We'll get out someway----"

"Tell me the truth, Bill," the girl suddenly urged. "I can stand it. I
will stand it--don't be afraid to tell me."

The man looked down at her in infinite compassion. "Poor little girl,"
he said. "What do you want to know?"

She didn't resent the words. She only felt speechlessly grateful and
someway comforted,--as a baby girl might feel in her father's arms.

"Does it mean--that we've lost, after all?"

"Our lives? Not at all." She read in his face that this, at least, was
the truth. "I'll tell you, Miss Tremont, just what I think it means.
If we were on the other side of the river, and we had horses, we could
push through and get out--easy enough. But we haven't got horses--even
Buster is drowned--and it would be a hard fight to carry supplies
and blankets on our backs, for the long hike down into Bradleyburg. It
would likely be too much for you. Besides, the river lays between.
In time we might go down to quieter waters and build a raft--out of
logs--but the snow's coming thicker all the time. Before we could get
it done and get across, we couldn't mush out--for the snows have come
to stay and we haven't got snowshoes. We could rig up some kind of
snowshoes, I suppose, but until the snow packs we couldn't make it into
town. It's too long a way and too cold. In soft snow even a strong man
can only go a little way--you sink a foot and have to lift a load of
snow with every step. Every way we look there's a block. We're like
birds, caught in a cage."

"But won't men--come to look for us?"

"I've been thinking about that. Miss Tremont, they won't come till
spring, and then they'll likely only half look for us. I know this
northern country. Death is too common a thing to cause much stir.
Lounsbury will tell th