"Oh no, of course I didn't mean that," rejoined Katrine, laughing.

"Disturbed you, I should say. Oh, Stephen, give me some of that whisky; I am almost dead with cold."

Her face did indeed look frozen white with cold under her fur cap, and her dark eyes shone in it with a liquid splendour that made Stephen's heart beat tumultuously against his side. He poured out some of the spirit for her and pushed her gently into a chair, commencing to pull off her thick gloves for her.

"I want Will Johnson," she said, with her customary directness.

"Stephen, I've come up to fetch him. He's one of your men. Tell me where I can find him."

"What do you want with him at this time of night?" questioned Stephen, while Talbot silently extracted a plate of bread and bacon from the cupboard and put it on the table at her elbow.

"I don't want him for myself," she answered mischievously. "His wife has sent me up to find him; she thinks she is dying, and wants to see him to-night. Where can I find him?"

"His cabin is a little higher up the gulch, but you mustn't go there; I will go after him," said Stephen hastily.

"I don't know," replied Katrine; "I'd better ride up there and then take him on home with me, hadn't I?"

"Ride back again to-night!" exclaimed Stephen. "What madness! It was bad enough to make the ride once. She mustn't think of it, must she, Talbot?" and he turned to his friend for corroboration.

"Certainly not, I should say," returned Talbot, in his quiet but final way. "I will ride up to Johnson's place and send him down home, and you can make Katrine comfortable here."

The girl sprang to her feet.

"Why, what an idea!" she said, with a flush on her pale cheeks. "I only came to you to find Will. Of course I can't stay here all night."

"Your mission will be accomplished, won't it, if Will goes to his wife?"

returned Talbot quietly. "There is no need to risk your life again.

There is no good in it; besides, it will save time if you let Will have the pony at once to take him back. You can have one of ours in the morning."

She looked up at him. She admired Talbot exceedingly. His voice was so invariably gentle and quiet, so different from all the voices that she heard round her daily. Stephen's, though his resembled it, had not the same curious accent of refinement. His manner, too, had the same extreme gentleness; and yet beneath this apparent softness she knew there existed a courage that equalled any in the whole camp. He looked very handsome too, she thought, at this moment, as she met a soft smile in his eyes, and her tones were more hesitating as she repeated--

"I think I ought to return."

"Well, I'm going to despatch Will for you," replied Talbot, turning away. "I leave it to you, Stephen, to persuade her to stay," and he walked out. A second later they heard the pony's hoofs going up the narrow trail past the cabin.

"You can have my room; I'll sleep here on the floor," remarked Stephen.

The girl got up.

"No," she said in her most decided tone. "I'll stay if you let me sleep here on the floor, or I'll go home. Turn you out of your own comfortable bed I will not."

"Go home you can't," said Stephen in an equally decided tone, "so I'll make you up a bed here just in front of the stove."

He went into the next room, and Katrine, left alone, drank up her whisky and gazed round the cabin. It was not at all an interesting interior, and had not the faint suggestions of artistic taste that redeemed Talbot's. A few prints were on the walls, seemingly cut from ill.u.s.trated papers and princ.i.p.ally consisting of views of cathedrals and school buildings, which Katrine's eyes wandered over without interest. At the farthest end from her there were some stout shelves nailed against the wall, and on these rested a row of flat tin pans; between the pans were pushed one or two books, and she recognised amongst them his Greek testament. She rose and strolled over to the shelf, and standing on tiptoe looked into the pans. As she thought, they contained thin layers of gold dust. She was standing there looking into them when Stephen returned and came up behind her.

"They look fine, don't they?" he said. "That's a thirty dollar pan."

Katrine turned, and looking up was startled by the eager light in his face and the greed written in every line of it. For herself, reckless, happy-go-lucky gambler that she was by nature, gold had little value for her except to toss by the handful on the tables to buy half-an-hour's excitement. With a sudden movement she seized the fullest pan by the rim in one hand and the Greek testament beside it in the other, and danced away from him to the other side of the room. Stephen turned with an involuntary cry, and followed her with anxious eyes.

"Now which would you rather lose?" she said, laughing.

His eyes were fixed upon the pan, which was heavy and as much as she could support with one hand. He dreaded each minute to see it tip up and its golden treasure pour out on the floor.

"Oh, I don't know. Don't be foolish," he said in a vexed tone.

Katrine sidled up to the window.

"Answer, or I'll--"

Stephen turned white. He felt she was capable of doing any mad thing when he met those mocking, sparkling eyes.

"Oh--I--I--would rather lose the book," he stammered, in an agony to see the gold safely put back. "I could replace that, you know."

Katrine advanced to him, balancing the pan as if weighing it.

"Stephen, this is very heavy," she said, looking him straight in the eyes.

"Let me take it from you," he said, eagerly stretching out his hands.

"Do you know what makes it so?" she said, still balancing it and still looking at him. "Your soul is in it!" and she gave it back to him.

Stephen reddened angrily, and took both the book and the gold from her and replaced them sulkily on the shelf. Katrine had turned her back and walked over to the fire, humming.

"What a royal couch you've made me!" she remarked, breaking the awkward silence that followed, and looking down on the pile of red blankets he had spread in front of the stove.

He had, in fact, stripped his own bed and collected blankets from every corner to make a comfortable resting-place for her. Before Stephen could answer he was summoned to the door. Talbot looked in upon them, but would not come inside.

"I've sent Will off," he said; "he swore like anything, but he is gone.

No, thanks, Steve, I won't come in. I'm tired, and going to my own cabin now. See you at breakfast. Good-night," and before Katrine could thank him he was gone.

The two thus left entirely alone in the deep quiet of the gulch to pa.s.s the night together looked at each other for a moment with a shade of silent embarra.s.sment. But the girl, accustomed as she was to take care of herself in all sorts of situations and surroundings, and endued with a certain fierce chast.i.ty of nature, recovered herself instantly and spoke quite naturally.

"I feel tired too, and would like to go to sleep now, if I may."

"Certainly," said Stephen. "You have this room to yourself. The stove will burn till daylight, and you have the whisky if you feel cold in the night. Good-night."

His tone was very formal, for he would so much have liked it to be otherwise, and without looking at her he took a match from his pocket and went into the other room, shutting the door after him. The girl waited a moment, then she shut the door of the stove and threw herself down on the soft pile of blankets, and drawing one of them over her to her ears, drew a deep, contented sigh, and was peacefully asleep in a few seconds.

The next morning Stephen rose stiff and cramped from his denuded bed.

When he was completely dressed he silently opened his door and crept noiselessly into the adjoining room. The girl was not yet awake, and he stole softly over to the bed on the hearth and looked down at her. She lay warm and sleeping comfortably amongst the blankets. She was fully dressed, just as she had been the previous evening, except that two or three b.u.t.tons were unfastened at the collar of her dress, and allowed the solid white neck to show beneath the rounded chin. The little head, with its ma.s.s of dark silky curls, lay inclined towards the stove, and the curled rosy lips had a softer smile than they generally wore in the daytime. Stephen leaned over her, entranced and breathless. As his eyes followed the dark arch of the eyebrows, the sweet delicate contour of the cheek, he forgot the horror he felt of her sometimes in her waking moments, forgot the hideous background of the saloons, forgot all the evil there might be in her, and bowed before that supreme power that human beauty has over us; he worshipped her as he had never worshipped his G.o.d. For a few seconds it was enough for him to gaze on her, then came an overwhelming impulse to stoop and kiss the soft youthful lips, to touch them even if ever so lightly. If he could without awakening her! But no, she was his guest, under his roof and protection. All that was best in his nature rose and held him motionless like a hand of iron. After a few seconds Katrine stirred, and Stephen, feeling she was about to awake, would have moved away, but his eyes seemed fixed and as impossible to remove from her face as one's hands are from an electric battery. The next minute her lids were lifted, and her eyes, two wells of living light, flashed up at him.

"Good-morning," she said, sitting up. "How dreadfully pale you look, Stephen! What is the matter?"

"Do I?" he answered, with a forced laugh, feeling the blood, which had seemed to rest suspended in his veins for those few seconds, rush to his heart again in great waves.

"You do indeed," she said, getting up. "I expect you want your breakfast. Tell me what I can do to make myself useful."

She shook her hair straight, fastened the collar of her bodice, and, was dressed. She needed no toilet apparently, but looked as clean and fresh as a rose waking up in its garden.

"Nothing," returned Stephen hastily. "Go over and tell Talbot to come in to breakfast, if you like; I'll have it ready when you come back."