ightly ajar.

Bill stood before the fireplace, his shaggy fur cap pushed far back on
his head, his gauntlets swinging from the cord about his neck. She had
left a great bed of coals on the hearth, and the glow shone redly on
his frost-scabbed face. But the marks of bitter trail bucking, the
marks of frostbite, the stubby beard, the tiny icicles that still
clustered on his eyebrows; while these traces of hardship tugged at her
heart they were forgotten when she saw the expression that overshadowed
his face. Wonder and unbelief and longing were all mirrored there.
She took a shy step forward to see what riveted his gaze. And despite
the choking sensation in her throat she smiled--for she had taken off
her little, beaded house moccasins and left them lying on the bearskin
before the fire, and he was staring down at them like a man
fresh-wakened from a dream, unbelieving and bewildered.

[Illustration: Bill stood before the fireplace, his shaggy fur cap
pushed far back on his head.]

With that she opened the door and ran to him. He started, as if she
had been a ghost. Then he opened his arms and drew her close to him.

"Bill, Bill, what made you so long?" she whispered. "I guess it served
me right, but it seemed a never-ending time."

"What made me so long?" he echoed, bending his rough cheek down against
the warm smoothness of hers. "Lord, _I_ didn't know you wanted me. I
ain't no telepathist, hon. You never yeeped one little word since I
left. How long you been here?"

"Since last September." She smiled up at him. "Didn't Courvoiseur's
man deliver a message from me to the mine? Didn't you come in answer
to my note?"

"Great Caesar's ghost--since September--alone! You poor little girl!"
he murmured. "No, if you sent word to me through Courvoiseur I never
got it. Maybe something happened his man. I left the Klappan with the
first snow. Went poking aimlessly over around the Finlay River with a
couple of trappers. Couldn't settle down. Never heard a word from
you. I'd given you up. I just blew in this way by sheer accident.
Girl, girl, you don't know how good it is to see you again, to have
this warm body of yours cuddled up to me again. And you came right
here and planted yourself to wait till I turned up?"

"Sure!" She laughed happily. "But I sent you word, even if you never
got it. Oh, well, it doesn't matter. Nothing matters now. You're
here, and I'm here, and-- Oh, Billy-boy, I was