stresses of life had no meaning for her, before she drew back and
closed the door.

Reappearing, at the window, she repeated the same convincing assumption
of untroubled indolence as she drew in the heavy shutters; but a moment
later she stood shaken and blanched of cheek at the rear door. "Come in
hastily," she pleaded. "Air ye hurted?"

Slipping through the aperture, Henderson smiled at her. His heart had
leaped wildly as he read the terror of her eyes: a terror for his
danger.

"I'm not hurt," he assured her, "except for a twisted ankle, but it's a
miracle of luck. Where's your father?"

No actress trained and finished in her art could have carried off with
greater perfection a semblance of tranquillity than had Blossom while
his safety hung in the balance. Now, with that need ended, she leaned
back against the support of the wall with her hands gropingly spread;
weak of knee and limp almost to collapse. Her amber eyes were
preternaturally wide and her words came with gasping difficulty. She
had forgotten her striving after exemplary grammar.

"He hain't hyar--he won't be back afore to-morrow noon. Thar hain't
nobody hyar but me."

"Oh!" The monosyllable slipped from the man's lips with bitter
disappointment. He knew the rigid tenets of mountain usage--an
unwritten law.

A stranger may share a one-roomed shack with men, women and children,
but the traveler who is received into a cabin in the absence of its men
compromises the honor of its women.

"Oh," he repeated dejectedly, "I was seekin' shelter for the night. I'm
famishin' an' weary. Kin ye give me a snack to eat. Blossom, afore I
fares forth again?"

It was with entire unconsciousness that he had slipped back into the
rough vernacular of his childhood. At that moment he was a man who had
rubbed elbows with death and he had reverted to type as instinctively
as though he had never known any other life.

"Afore ye fares forth!" In Blossom's eyes blazed the same Valkyrie fire
that had been in them as she barred his path to Bear Cat Stacy's still.
"Ye hain't a-goin ter fare forth, ter be murdered! I aims ter hide ye
out right hyar!"

Civilization just then seemed far away; the primal very near--and, in
that mood, the hot currents of long-denied love for this woman who was
defying her own laws to offer him sanctuary, mounted to supremacy. Such
a love appeared as logical as a little while ago it had seemed
illogical. Eagle blood should mate with eagle bl