of a sick child.
"Here I am, Bill," she replied. "I'm hit with a stray shot--and I
believe--they've killed me."

XXXII

Was this their destiny,--utter and hopeless defeat in the moment of
victory? Was this the way of justice that, after all they had endured,
they should yet go down to death? They had fought a mighty fight, they
had waged a cruel war against cold and hardship, they had known the full
terror and punishment of the snow wastes in their dreadful adventure of
the past two days; and had it all come to nothing, after all? Was life
no more than this,--a cruel master that tortured his slaves only to
give them death? These thoughts brought their full bitterness in the
instant that Bill groped his way to Virginia's side.

His hands told him she was lying huddled against the wall, a slight,
pathetic figure that broke the heart within the man. "Here I am," she
said again, her voice not racked with pain but only soft and tender. He
knelt beside her, then groped for a match. But whether the injury was
small or great he felt that the issue would be the same.

But before he struck the match he remembered his foe without; he would
be quick to fire through the window if a light showed him his target.
Even now he might be crouched in the snow, his rifle in his arms,
waiting for just this chance. Bill snatched a blanket from the cot,
shielded them with it, and lighted the match behind it. "He can't see
the light through this," he told her. "If he does--I guess it doesn't
much matter."

He groped for the fallen candle, lighted it, and held it close.
"You'll have to look and see yourself, Virginia," he told her. "You
remember--of course----"

Yes, she remembered his blindness. She looked down at the little stain
of red on her left shoulder. "I can't tell," she told him. "It went in
right here--give me your hand."

She took his warm hand and rested it against the wound. Someway, it
comforted her. "Close to the top of the shoulder, then," he commented.
Then he groped till his sensitive fingers told him he had found the
egress of the bullet--on her arm just down from her shoulder. "But
there's nothing I can do--it's not a wound I can dress. It's cleaner
now than anything we've got to clean it with. The only thing is to lie
still--so it won't bleed."

"Do you think I'll die?" she asked him quietly. There was no
fear--only sorrow--in her tones. "Tell me frankly, Bill."

"I don't think the wound