She darted across the room to the fire. In an instant she
was back with a stick of wood in her hands. Philip saw her then--her
streaming hair and white face above them, and the club fell. The hands
at his throat relaxed. He swayed to his feet and with dazed eyes and a
weird sort of laugh opened his arms. Celie ran into them. He felt her
sobbing and panting against him. Then, looking down, he saw that for
the present the man who had made the strange snowshoe trail was as good
as dead.

The air he was taking into his half strangled lungs cleared his head
and he drew away from Celie to begin the search of the room. His eyes
were more accustomed to the gloom, and suddenly he gave a cry of
exultation. Against the end of the mud and stone fireplace stood a
rifle and over the muzzle of this hung a belt and holster. In the
holster was a revolver. In his excitement and joy his breath was almost
a sob as he snatched it from the holster and broke it in the light of
the door. It was a big Colt Forty-five--and loaded to the brim. He
showed it to Celie, and thrust her to the door.

"Watch!" he cried, sweeping his arm to the open. "Just two minutes
more. That's all I want--two minutes--and then--"

He was counting the cartridges in the belt as he fastened it about his
waist. There were at least forty, two-thirds of them soft-nosed rifle.
The caliber was .303 and the gun was a Savage. It was modern up to the
minute, and as he threw down the lever enough to let him glimpse inside
the breech he caught the glisten of cartridges ready for action. He
wanted nothing more. The cabin might have held his weight in gold and
he would not have turned toward it.

With the rifle in his hands he ran past Celie out into the day. For the
moment the excitement pounding in his body had got beyond his power of
control. His brain was running riot with the joyous knowledge of the
might that lay in his hands now and he felt an overmastering desire to
shout his triumph in the face of their enemies.

"Come on, you devils! Come on, come on," he cried. And then, powerless
to restrain what was in him, he let out a yell.

From the door Celie was staring at him. A few moments before her face
had been dead white. Now a blaze of color was surging back into her
cheeks and lips and her eyes shone with the glory of one who was
looking on more than triumph. From her own heart welled up a cry, a
revelation of that wonderful thing throbbing in her breast which must