Both Flick and Seagreave, who were in Gallito's confidence, believed that the boy's fears were greatly exaggerated, but when they saw the sheriff and all of his deputies in the hall their curiosity was aroused. Flick had then gone over to speak to Hanson and Hanson's conversation had convinced him that Pedro was really in danger and would be arrested before the evening was over. They then devised the plan of having him escape in Pearl's dancing dress and long cloak, meaning to drive him up the hill and let him take his chances of eluding his would-be captors in the forest surrounding Gallito's cabin. But he had slipped out of the cart a short distance up the hill. Seagreave believed that there were a pair of snow-shoes in the bottom of the cart, which had disappeared. That was all any of them could say.

But when Seagreave pointed out to the sheriff that if no one remained in either his or Gallito's cabin, it was extremely likely that both dwellings would be looted before nightfall, also that without the fires made and kept up the provisions would freeze and that with a guard over him, he would be as easy to lay hands on as if he were down at the hotel with the rest, the sheriff gravely considered the matter and was disposed to yield the point. As Seagreave remarked, he certainly had not mastered the art of flying and he knew no other way by which he might escape. "Poor Pedro!" he sighed.

"You bet it's poor Pedro," said the sheriff grimly. "Why, you know as well as I do, Seagreave, that there ain't no way on God's green earth for that boy to make a getaway. Of course, he's given us a lot of bother, what with that damned snow falling again last night and covering up any tracks he might make, but we're bound to get him. Why, a little army, if it had enough ammunition, could hold Colina against the world. When you got a camp that's surrounded by canons about a thousand foot deep, how you going to get into it, if the folks inside don't want you? Now, take that, boy! How's he going to strike the main roads and the bridges in the dead of night, especially when the bridges is all so covered over with drifts that you can't see 'em by day? And, anyway, the crust of the snow won't hold him in lots of places. 'Course he may flounder 'round some, but there's no possible chance for him, and I'm thinking that the coyotes'll get him before we do."

To this Seagreave agreed, and after the sheriff had further relieved his feelings by some vitriolic comments upon Hanson, he granted him permission to look after the two cabins, and indifferently ordered the deputy in charge to go down the hill and get his breakfast at the hotel, remarking with rough humor that he'd leave Seagreave the prisoner of the mountain peaks and he guessed they'd keep him safe all right.

So the two men, their appetites sharpened by a night spent in searching for the fugitive, took their way down toward the village, and it was not long thereafter that Pearl, having secured permission to go up to the cabin and make some changes in her clothing, wearily climbed the hill. The lacks in her costume had been temporarily supplied by the inn-keeper's wife, but these makeshifts irked her fastidious spirit.

She had suggested that Mrs. Nitschkan and Mrs. Thomas go with her, but they were too thoroughly enjoying the limelight in which they found themselves to consider trudging up to their isolated cabin. Mrs. Thomas, in a pink glow of excitement, cooed and smiled and fluttered her lashes at half a dozen admirers, while Mrs. Nitschkan recounted to an interested group just where and how she had shot her bears.

"Say, have you took in the sheriff?" Mrs. Thomas found occasion to whisper to Mrs. Nitschkan. "He's an awful good looker, an' I think he got around that hall so stylish last night."

"What eyes he's got ain't for you," answered the gypsy cruelly. "He's kept his lamps steady on Pearl."

"That's all you know about it," returned Mrs. Thomas with some spirit. "He sat beside me at the table this morning and squeezed my hand twice when I passed him the flap-jacks. He's a real man, he is, an' likes a woman to be a woman, an' not a grizzly bear like you or a black panther like that Pearl."

Pearl's progress up the hill was necessarily slow. The wagons had cut the snow into great ruts which made walking difficult, and where it was smoother it was exceedingly slippery. But her weariness soon vanished under the stimulus of the fresh morning air. Even the exertion of dancing the evening before and the night of excitement which followed had left no trace. She was, indeed, a tireless creature and supple as a whalebone. So, after a few moments' exercise in the exhilaratingly pure air, the sparkle returned to her eye, the color to her cheek, and her step had regained its usual light buoyancy.

Although March had come with its thaws, there was no suggestion of spring in the landscape. From the white, monotonous expanse of snow rose bleak, skeleton shapes of trees lifting bare, black boughs to the snow-sodden clouds. Upon either side of the road lay a forest of desolation—varied only by the sad, dull green of the wind-blown pines—which stretched away and away until it became a mere blue shadow as unsubstantial as smoke on the mountain horizon; and yet spring, still invisible and to be denied by the doubting, was in the air, with all its soft intimations of bud and blossom and joyous life; and spring was in Pearl's heart as she hastened up the hill toward Seagreave. It brushed her cheek like a caress, it touched her lips like a song.

When she was about a quarter of a mile up from the village she crossed a little bridge which spanned a deep and narrow crevasse, a gash which cleft the great mountain to its foundation. Pearl lingered here a moment to rest, and, leaning her arms on the railing, looked down curiously into the mysterious depths so far below.

The white walls of the sharp, irregular declivity reflected many cold, prismatic lights, and down, far down where the eye could no longer distinguish shapes and outlines, there lay a shadow like steam from some vast, subterranean cauldron, blue, dense, impenetrable. It fascinated Pearl and she stood there trying to pierce the depths with her eye, until at last, recalled to herself by the chill in the wind, she again turned and hastened up the hill. But before seeking Seagreave and asking him to share his breakfast with her, she followed the instincts of her inherent and ineradicable coquetry and, stopping at her father's cabin, made a toilet, slipping into one of her own gowns and rearranging her hair. Then, throwing a long cape about her and adjusting her mantilla, she closed the door behind her and turned into the narrow trail which led at sharp right angles to the road to Saint Harry's cabin. It was, Pearl reflected, almost like walking through the tunnel of a mine; the snow walls on either side of her were as high as her head. Occasionally the green fringes of a pine branch tapped her cheek sharply with their rusty needles. Then the tunnel widened to a little clearing where stood the cabin, picturesque with the lichened bark of the trees on the rough-hewn logs.

Seagreave had evidently seen her coming, for before she lifted her hand to knock he threw open the door. "Ah," he cried, a touch of concern in his voice, "I was just going down to the other cabin to make up the fires before you came. If you stopped there you must have found it cold, and you did stop," his quick eye noting the change she had effected in her costume.

"Yes," she smiled, "they wouldn't let me come up the hill in Jose's coat and my rose petticoats, and I felt like a miner in the clothes they lent me." She had entered the cabin and had taken the chair he had pushed up near the crackling, blazing fire of logs which he had just finished building to his satisfaction. The bond of sympathy between Seagreave and Jose was probably that they both performed all manual tasks with a sort of beautiful precision. Gallito had characterized Harry's cabin as the cell of a monk. It was indeed simple and plain to austerity, and yet it possessed the beauty of a prevailing order and harmony. Shelves his own hands had made lined the rough walls and were filled with books; beside the wide fireplace was an open cupboard, displaying his small and shining store of cooking utensils. For the rest a table or two and a few chairs were all the room contained.

It was the first time Pearl had ever been in the cabin, and, although she maintained the graceful languor of her pose, lying back a little wearily in her chair, yet her narrow, gleaming eyes pierced every corner of the room, with avid eagerness absorbing the whole, and then returning for a closer and more penetrating study of details, as if demanding from this room where he lived and thought a comprehensive revelation of him, a key to that remote, uncharted self which still evaded her.

Seagreave himself, whose visible presence was, for the time, outside the field of her conjecture, was busy preparing her breakfast, and now, after laying the cloth, he placed a chair for her at the table and announced that everything was ready. He seated himself opposite her and Pearl's heart thrilled at the prospect of this intimate tete-a-tete, the color rose on her cheek, her lashes trembled and fell.

"Where's Jose?" she said hastily, to cover her slight, unusual embarrassment. "Tell me quick how you managed it. Neither Bob nor Pop could tell me because someone was always with us."

"Ah," he said, "the gods were with us, but it was a wild chance, I assure you. Fortunately, it was still snowing. Hugh and Jose were already in the cart and everyone else had hastened home as fast as he or she could go. The boys would not have waited for me if I had not dashed out just when I did, and I was glad enough to escape, for I was afraid they would make some mistake in the road, Hugh not being able to see, and Jose familiar with the village only through our description of it. I wasted no time in jumping into the cart and then drove like Jehu to the Mont d'Or, fortunately on our way up the hill."

"The Mont d'Or!" she interjected in surprise. "But why did you stop there?"

He shrugged his shoulders significantly. "It is Jose's shelter. He had the keys of the engine room. Your father had sent them to him, and with them he let himself in, and then locked the door behind him. We got a fair start, of course, but it was only a few moments after we reached here that three or four of the deputies were on our heels."

"Ah," she cried, "they thought you had driven him here."

"Naturally, and it is unnecessary to say that they spent several hours in searching, not only this cabin, but your father's and Mrs. Nitschkan's to boot, and also the stable yonder." He pointed to a little shed farther up the hill where he kept his horse and cart. He held out his coffee cup for her to refill and laughed heartily. "I have no doubt that they will return at intervals during the day to see if there isn't some tree-top or ledge of rock that they may have overlooked; but at present they are too busy exploring every nook and cranny of the various mines, especially the Mont d'Or."

She put down the coffee pot with a clatter and threw herself back in her chair with a gesture of intense disappointment. "Then surely they will find Jose!" she cried.

"Oh, you do not know," he exclaimed. "Wait; it was stupid of me not to have explained. Your father is a wonderful man. He overlooks nothing. He foresaw that in spite of all precautions, Jose—and other friends of his," there was a trace of hesitation in his tones in speaking to her of her father's chosen companions, "might be trapped here in the winter time when they could not escape over the one or two secret trails which he knows and which he has shown Jose. So, long ago, working secretly and overtime in the Mont d'Or, he hollowed out a small chamber. It is above one of the unworked stopes and its entrance defies detection."

"But are you sure?" she interjected earnestly. "Have you seen it yourself?"

"Yes, I was with Jose the first time Gallito showed it to him. Then he, your father, took us over the other parts of the mine and brought us back to the same spot to see if we could discover the hiding place for ourselves. I assure you we could not. Neither Jose nor myself liked being baffled in that way, for it seemed to us that we went over every inch of the ground, and your father stood there laughing at us in that sarcastic way of his. Finally we gave up the search and Gallito marked it, so that it might be found in a hurry. It is above one's head and the wall is too smooth to climb in order to reach it—"

"How can Jose get in then?" interrupted Pearl.

"Jose has a key to your father's locker, and in that locker he keeps a rope ladder. Jose throws up the ladder and the hooks catch on a dark, narrow little ledge; climbing up to this, he finds a small opening; he wriggles into this and finds himself in a small chamber which your father always keeps well provisioned. From this chamber a narrow passage leads up to the surface of the ground, thus providing two exits; but, of course, the one above ground cannot be used now, owing to the snow."

Pearl, who had been listening breathlessly to this description of Jose's hiding place, leaned back with a sigh of relief. "Then it looks as if Jose might be all right for the present. I do hope so for all our sakes."

She sat silent for a few moments, apparently turning over something in her mind. When she spoke again her manner showed a certain embarrassment. "Do—do you know," she asked rather hesitatingly, "how they got the information?"

"No," he replied. "And that is what is puzzling all of us, but they have so far refused to tell us."

Almost she uttered a prayer of thankfulness. She very strongly suspected that the only way Hanson could have secured the information was through her mother's inveterate habit of eavesdropping, a weakness of hers which she had failed to hide from her daughter, and a feeling almost of gratitude came over Pearl that so far Hanson had been decent enough to spare that poor babbler.

She took a last sip of coffee and rose from the table. "I must go down to the other cabin," she said, reluctance in her heart, if not in her voice.

"I will go with you"—Seagreave rose with alacrity to accompany her—"and get the fires builded. It should really have been done long ago. But what am I thinking of? Wait a moment." He clapped his hand to his pocket. "One never knows what avenues of cleverness and cunning a great temptation may open up." He laughed a little. "On that wild drive to the Mont d'Or I insisted on Jose removing your necklace and all your rings with which he had decked himself. I dare say it cost him immeasurable pangs, but he had no time to express them. As I was driving he passed them over to Hugh, and when we reached here Hugh gave them to me. He explained that in attempting to give them to you he might be seen, and if he were it might lead to some embarrassing questions."

He drew from his pocket first the emeralds and then the rings, laying them carefully upon the table, where they formed a glittering heap.

"I don't think it is possible that Jose withheld anything," Seagreave continued. "He would not dare, and I am quite sure that neither Hughie nor I dropped even a ring when he gave them to me. Still I would be very much obliged if you will look them over and see if they are intact."

At the sight of her treasures Pearl uttered an exclamation of pleasure and fingered them lovingly, laying the emeralds against her cheek with a gesture that was almost a caress. "Thank you. Oh, it was good of you to think of them at such a time and rescue them for me." Her soft, sliding voice was warm with gratitude. "They are all here." She slipped the rings on her fingers, her eyes dreaming on them. She fastened the emeralds about her neck and hid them beneath her gown, pressing them against her flesh as if she found pleasure in their cold contact.

She lifted her eyes to him; her smile was languourously ardent; impulsively she caught his hand and held it for a moment against her cheek. He started and she felt him tremble. Then hastily he withdrew his hand, murmuring at the same time a confused, almost inarticulate protest; but Pearl did not wait to hear it. She had risen abruptly and, catching up her cloak and wrapping it hastily about her, had opened the door before he could reach it and had stepped out into the snow.

Seagreave, who had paused a moment to close the door behind them, heard her utter a sharp exclamation and turned quickly.

"Dios!" she cried. "Dios! What is it?"

She had fallen back against the wall of the cabin and was gazing about her with a strange and startled expression. Seagreave's eye reflected it as he too stared about him with a look not yet of alarm but of wild, deep wonder. For the moment, at least, all things were the same. Above them the peaks towered whitely in the sullen, gray sky. On a level with their eyes, the illimitable forests of bare, black trees mingling with the denser and more compact shapes of the evergreens, stretched away over the hillsides, casting their long blue shadows on the snow-covered ground until they wore blurred indistinguishably in the violet haze of distance. Unchanged, and yet so strong was the presage of some unimagined and disastrous event, that when a long shiver ran through the earth Pearl screamed aloud, and, stumbling toward Seagreave, reached out gropingly for his hand.

For the second that they waited the earth, too, seemed to wait, a solemn, awe-filled moment of incalculable change, a tense moment, as if the unknown, mysterious forces of nature were gathering themselves together for some mighty, unprecedented effort.

Then shiver after shiver shook the ground, the earth trembled as if in some deep convulsion, the white peaks seemed bowing and bending—then a roar as of many waters, the air darkened and earth and sky seemed filled with the mass of the mountains slipping down—down to chaos.

Pearl had ceased to scream and had fallen to her knees, clinging desperately to Seagreave. Her face was blanched white with terror, and she was muttering incoherent prayers.

As for Harry, he had forgotten her, forgotten himself, and was living through moments or centuries, he knew not, which, of wonder and horror.

And what a sight! It was not simply a great mountain of snow slipping thunderously down to the valleys beneath; but in its ever gathering momentum and incredible velocity it tore great rocks from the ground and either snapped off trees as if they had been straws, or wholly uprooted them, and now was a fast-flying mass of snow, earth, trees and rocks whirling and hurtling through the air.

A huge rock had, as if forcibly detaching itself, flown off from the avalanche and buried itself in the ground only a few feet beyond Harry and Pearl, and more than one uprooted tree lay near them. Death had missed them by only a few paces.

Not realizing her immunity even after the air had begun to clear, and still panic-stricken and fearful of what might still occur, Pearl continued to moan and pray until Seagreave, who had been so dazed that he had been almost in a state of trance, again became aware of her presence and, partially realizing her piteous state of terror, lifted her in his arms and, wrapping them about her, endeavored to soothe her and allay her fears, although he had not yet sufficiently recovered himself to know fully what he was doing, and was merely following the instinct of protection.

It was impossible for him to realize the mundane again immediately after these undreamed of and supernormal experiences. Holding Pearl, who still clung to him frantically, cowering and trembling against him, he leaned upon the rough, projecting walls of his cabin and gazed with awed and still unbelieving eyes into this new and formless world, yet obscured with flying snow.

Gradually as the air cleared he saw that a new world, indeed, lay before them. "Look, look, Pearl," he cried, hoping to rouse her from her state of blind fright. "It has been an avalanche and it is over now."

"No, no," she moaned, and buried her head more deeply in his shoulder. "I dare not look up. It will come again."

"No, it doesn't happen twice. It is over now and we are safe and the cabin is safe."

And yet, in spite of himself, he sympathized with her fear more than he would have admitted either to himself or her. Anything seemed possible to him now. He had looked upon a miracle. He had seen those immutable peaks, as stable as Time, bend and bow in their strange, cosmic dance, for the change in the position of one had created the illusory effect of a change in all.

"Come, look up, Pearl," he urged. "It is all over and everything is changed. Look up and get accustomed to it."

Everything was indeed changed. For a few yards before the cabin his path with its white, smooth walls was intact, but beyond that lay an incredibly smooth expanse of bare earth. The road was obliterated; the vast projecting rock ledges which had overshadowed it had disappeared. They had all been razed or else uprooted like the rocks and trees and carried on in that irresistible rush. The light poured baldly down upon a hillside bare and blank and utterly featureless. But far down the road where the bridge had spanned the canon there rose a vast white mountain, effectually cutting them off from all communication with the village below.

Nothing remained of familiar surroundings. This was, indeed, a new world. At last Seagreave roused himself from his stunned contemplation of it and bent himself to the task of coaxing Pearl to lift her head and gaze upon it, too.

At last she did so, but at the sight of that bare and unfamiliar hillside her terrors again overcame her. "Come," she cried, dragging at his arm, "we must go—go—get away from here. Dios! Are you mad? It is the end of the world. Come quickly."

"Where?" asked Seagreave gently.

"Home," she cried wildly. "To the church. We can at least die blessedly."

Seagreave shook his head, his eyes on that white wall—that snow mountain which rose from the edge of the crevasse and seemed almost to touch the sky. "Listen, Pearl," he spoke more earnestly now, as if to force some appreciation of the situation upon her mind. "This cabin is the only thing upon the mountain. The avalanche has carried everything else away."

"Not my father's cabin, too," she peered down the hill curiously, yet fearfully, in a fascinated horror. "Oh, but it is true. It is gone. Oh, what shall we do? But we must get down to the camp. Come, come."

But for once Seagreave seemed scarcely to hear her. He had leaned out from the sheltering wall and was scanning with a measuring and speculative eye the white heap that rose from the edge of the canon and seemed almost to touch the lowering and sullen sky.

"Thank God, the camp is safe," he murmured. "The canon must have saved it, or else it would have been wiped off the earth just as Gallito's cabin has been. But it has swept the bridge away, of course."

"Oh, come." Pearl dragged at his sleeve. "I can't stay here. I am afraid."

"Pearl," and there were both anxiety and tenderness in his voice. "You must understand. Try to realize that there is no way to get down."

"But there must be some way," she insisted, "with snow-shoes—"

He shook his head gently but definitely. "There is no way. We might as well face it." He cast another long look at the sky. "It is the season for the thaws, the big thaws, but, even so, it will take time to melt down that mountain out there. No, it is useless to argue," as Pearl began again her futile rebellion against the inexorable forces of nature, "but what am I thinking of?" in quick self-reproach. "You must not stay out here in the cold any longer. Come." He threw open the cabin door.

But if Pearl heard him she gave no sign, but still leaned weakly, almost inertly, against the walls of the cabin, gazing down the hillside with dazed and still frightened eyes.

Seeing her condition, Seagreave wasted no more words, but lifted her in his arms and carried her into the room they had so recently left. There he placed her in a chair and pushed it near the fire and she sat shivering and cowering, her hands outstretched to the blaze.

The light from the fire streamed through the room and Pearl, cheered and restored more by that homely and familiar radiance than by any words of comfort he might have uttered, gradually sank further and further back in her chair and presently closed her eyes. It seemed to him that she slept. At first her rest was fitful, broken by exclamations and starts, but each time that she opened her eyes she saw the familiar and unchanged surroundings, and Seagreave sitting near her; and, reassured, her sleep became more natural and restful.

When she awoke it was to find herself alone. Seagreave had left, but she could hear him moving about in the next room, near at hand if she needed him. He was evidently bringing in some logs for the fire.

"As if nothing had happened," she muttered, "and things will go on just the same. We shall eat; we shall sleep. How can it be?"

She got up and began to walk up and down the room. She was young, she was strong, and the shock of those few moments of wonder and horror had almost worn off. Her active brain was alert and normal again, and she thought deeply as she walked to and fro, considering all possible phases of her present situation.

Then, ceasing to pace back and forth, she leaned against the window and looked out. The strange, new world lay before her, an earth bereft of its familiar forests, and which must send forth from its teeming heart a new growth of tender, springtime shoots to cover its nakedness. And as she gazed the sun burst through the gray clouds and poured down upon the wide, bare hillside an unbroken flood of golden splendor.

Hearing a slight sound behind her, she turned quickly. Seagreave had entered and, approaching the window, stood looking at the white sloping plain without.

"I couldn't chop any more wood," he said. "It seemed too commonplace after this thing that we have seen. But you—how are you?"

"I'm all right," she returned. But she did not meet his eyes; her black lashes lay long on her cheek; her cheek burned. She realized in a confused way that there was some change in their relative positions. She had always felt because of his reticence, his withdrawal into self, his diffidence in approaching her, easily mistress of any situation which might arise between them; but since those moments when they two had gazed upon the avalanche, and she in her terror had flung herself upon his breast, and had wrapped her arms about him and buried her face in his shoulder, he had assumed not only the tone but the manner of authority and had adopted again a natural habit of command, dropped or laid aside from indifference or inertia, but instinctively resumed when through some powerful feeling he became again his normal self, alive and alert, vigorous and enthusiastic. It was as if he had suddenly awakened to a whole world of new possibilities and new opportunities.

Beneath his long, steady gaze her own eyelids fluttered and fell; her cheeks flushed a deeper rose; her heart beat madly. She was furious at herself for these revealing weaknesses, and yet she, too, was conscious of new, undreamed-of possibilities, sweet, poignantly sweet.

"Pearl," his voice was low, shaken by the emotion which had overtaken both of them, "do you know that, as far as you and I are concerned, we are the only living human beings in all our world?"

She looked at him and, unknown to herself, her face still held its glow of rapture; her eyes were pools of love.

Her little rill of laughter was broken and shaken as falling water. "The sheriff didn't get us, and yet we're prisoners, prisoners of the snow."

"And you, my jailer, will you be kind to me?" But there was nothing pleading in his tone. It rang instead with exultant triumph.

"Why, Pearl"—a virile note of power as if some long-dreamed-of mastery were his at last swelled like a diapason through his voice—"we're in for a thaw, a big thaw, but it will take time to melt down that mountain out there in the crevasse; and you and I are here—alone—for a fortnight, at least a fortnight." He emphasized the words, lingering over them as if they afforded him delight.

"A fortnight! Here! Alone with you!" she cried. "Never, never. There must be a way—" she murmured confusedly and ran to the window to hide her agitation and embarrassment, pulling the curtain hastily aside and looking out unseeingly over the hills. She was trembling from head to foot.

The wind had risen and was wailing and shrieking over the bare hill and the air was dim with flying snow; but the spring that hours before had kissed her cheek and touched her lips like a song rose now in Pearl's heart. She pressed her tightly clasped hands against her breast and closed her eyes. A new world! And she and Harry were in it together—and alone.



CHAPTER XIV

The dawns rose, the suns set, after the avalanche as before, and Pearl and Seagreave, alone in the cabin, isolated from the world of human beings, took up their lives together, together and yet apart, in the great, encompassing silence of this white and winter-locked world.

Winter-locked, yes, but all the mighty, unseen forces of Nature were set toward spring. Nothing could stop or retard them now. Under sullen, lowering skies; beneath the blasts which swept down from the peaks; in spite of flying snow; unseen, unsuspected, in the darkness and stillness and warmth of the earth, the transformation was going on. The tender, young banners of green were almost ready for the decking of the trees, and almost completed was the weaving of pink and blue and lavender carpets of wild flowers for the hillsides.

And the spring that had arisen glorious in Pearl's heart when she had realized that she and Harry were prisoners of the avalanche was still resurgent. For the first day or two of their isolation she lived, breathed, moved in the splendor of her heart's dream. It encompassed her with the warmth and radiance of a flood of sunshine.

In spite of her protests and appeals, Seagreave would not permit her to help much with the household tasks, but busied himself almost constantly with them, maintaining with a sort of methodical pleasure the inspired order of his cabin. It is possible that he gave to each task a more exhaustive and undeviating attention than even he considered necessary, and this to cover the sense of embarrassment he felt in adapting himself not only to this pervasive, feminine presence, but to the exigencies of an unwonted companionship hedged about with restrictions.

He often felt as if he were entertaining a bird of brilliant tropical plumage in his cabin, as if it had flown thither from glowing southern lands and brought with it sensuous memories of color and fragrance, and wafts of sandalwood.

Sometimes he and Pearl walked about on the barren hillside, constantly washed more bare of snow by the daily rains which had begun to fall, and sometimes he read aloud to her a little, but in spite of Pearl's intelligence she had never cared much for books. She craved no record of another's emotions and struggles and passions. No life at second hand for her. She was absorbed in the living.

But if in the day there were many tasks to be done, and Harry could occupy more or less time in the hewing of wood and carrying of water, and all of the practical duties which that phrase may stand for, there were long evenings when he and Pearl sat in the firelight, their speech and their silence alike punctuated by the wail of the mountain wind about the cabin and the singing of the burning logs upon the hearth.

And it was during those evening hours that Seagreave felt most the shyness which her constant presence induced in him. By day he busied himself in securing her comfort, but by night he was tormented by his own chivalrous and fastidious thought of her, by his desire to reassure her mind, without words, if possible, as to the consequences of their isolation.

But sometimes after he had lighted her candle and she had said good-night, and had entered the little room where she slept, he would either sit beside the glowing embers or else build up afresh the great fire which was never permitted to die out night or day during the winter months, his thoughts full of her, dwelling on her, clinging to the memories of the day.

Jose's personality had been neither ubiquitous nor dominating. Seagreave had noticed him no more about the cabin than he had the little mountain brook which purled its way down the hill; but now his housemate was feminine, and with every passing hour he was more conscious of it. At night, after Pearl had gone to bed, he felt her presence as definitely as though she were still there. Some quality of her individuality lingered and haunted the room and haunted his thoughts as the sweet, unfamiliar odor of an exotic blossom permeates the atmosphere and remains, even when the flower is gone.

And as for Pearl, whether she walked on the barren hillsides or dreamed by the fire, or stood at the window watching Harry chop wood or carry water from the rushing mountain brook, her mind held but one thought, her heart but one image—him.

The studious abstraction, the ordered calm which characterized Seagreave's cabin, made fragrant by burning pine logs and fresh with the cold winds from the mountain tops, had altered by imperceptible and subtle gradations until the atmosphere was now strangely electrical, throbbing with vital life, glowing with warmth and color. In outer semblance nothing was changed, no more than was the appearance of the world outside, and yet beneath the surface of the lives in the cabin, as beneath the surface of the earth without, all the mighty forces of Nature were bent to one end.

Without, the spring thaws which were to melt down the mountain of snow in the ravine below were no longer presaged, but at hand. The rain fell for hours each day, but the dull and weeping skies, the heavy air, oppressed Seagreave's spirits and made him now sad and listless, but for the most part curiously restless.

Strive as he would, he could not escape nor ignore it, this atmosphere of the exotic which filled his cabin, the atmosphere of Pearl's beauty and magnetism and of her love for him. He did not recognize it as that. He only felt it as some strange, disturbing element which, while it troubled his thought, yet claimed it. His growing love for her filled him with a sort of terror. It seemed to him a mounting tide which would sweep him, he knew not whither, and with all the strength of his nature he struggled to hold to the resolution he had made the first day they were alone in the cabin, not to press his love upon her until she had left the shelter of his roof and was back again with her father.

One evening the two sat in the cabin together, as usual, Seagreave on one side of the fire reading—that is, his eyes were upon the book and he seemed apparently absorbed in its contents—but in reality his entire thought was focused upon Pearl, who sat opposite him in a low chair, her hands clasped idly in her lap, and he struggled desperately to maintain his attitude of friendly comradeship when he addressed her.

The leaping of the flames on the hearth made quaint arabesques of shadow on the rough walls and the wind sighed and sobbed in the chimney. Thus they sat for an hour or two in silence and then Seagreave lifted his eyes and stole one of his swift and frequent glances at Pearl. Something he saw riveted his attention and he continued to gaze, forgetful of his book, of his past resolutions, of anything in the world but her.

She was just loosening the cord which bound the throat of a small black leather bag, and while he watched her she poured its contents into her lap and sat bending over a handful of loose and sparkling jewels. She was not aware of his scrutiny, but sat in complete absorption, her dark, shining head bent over them, lifting them, turning them this way and that to catch the firelight, letting them trickle through her long, brown fingers.

There, sparkling in the fire-glow, was the desire of the world, the white, streaming flame of diamonds, the heart's blood of rubies, and sapphires—the blue of the sea and the sky—all their life and radiance imprisoned in a dew-drop.

"How beautiful they are!" he cried involuntarily, but what he really meant was, "How beautiful you are!"

She started and looked up at him in surprise. "Yes, they are," she said. "I have been gathering them for a long time. There are only a few, but every one is flawless."

"I never considered jewels before." He bent forward the better to see them. "I have often seen women wear them, but I just regarded them as a part of their decoration. Yet I can understand now why you love them. They are very beautiful, unset that way." He looked at her deeply. "But I believe it is for some reason deeper than that that they have a fascination for you. You are like them."

She let them fall like drops of rainbow water through her fingers; then she lifted her lashes. "Am I hard and cold like them?" She sent darting and dazzling full in his eyes her baffling, heart-shivering smile.

He did not answer at once, and she, still gazing at him, saw that he paled visibly, every tinge of color receding from his face; his eyes, deep and dark, held hers, as if reading her soul and demanding that she reveal the strange secrets of her nature.

The forces of life ready to burst through the harsh crust of the earth without and express themselves in the innocent glory of flower and grass and tender, green leaves, and the sound of birds, were now seeking expression through denser and more complex human avenues. All the love, all the longing which Seagreave had so sternly suppressed during these days he and Pearl had spent together, rose in his heart and threatened to sweep away in a mighty tide of elemental impulses all of those resolutions of restraint to which he had clung so hardly.

He arose and leaned his arm on the mantel-piece, still gazing at her as if he could never withdraw his eyes. "You are so—so beautiful," he stammered, scarcely knowing what he said. "The world will claim you. You have so much to give it and all your nature, all your heart turns to it. You will soon forget this hut in the mountains, and—and all that it has meant." He buried his head in his arms.

She, too, rose and laid the handful of her jewels on the table without another glance at them. "These mountains!" She threw wide her arms and drew a long, ecstatic breath. She came near to him and touched his arm. "I hated them once, I love them now." She smiled up at him, her darkly slumbrous, scarlet-lipped smile.

He leaned toward her as if to clasp her close, but the vows he had sworn to himself a thousand times since she had been in his cabin alone with him still held him. Slowly he drew back and with all the strength of his nature fought for self-control. He called upon every force of his will, and in that supreme moment his face hardened to the appearance of a sculptured mask; all of its finely-drawn outlines seemed set in stone.

She turned angry shoulders to him and stirred the stones on the table with impatient fingers until they rolled about, flashing darts of light. Symbols of power, of material and deadening splendor; eternal accompaniments of imperial magnificence! The sapphires sang triumph, the diamonds conquest, the rubies passionate and fulfilled love.

"They are what you really care for." He spoke huskily; his voice sounded thick and uncertain in his ears. "That and—and your wonderful dancing, and applause—and success and money. It's natural that you should—but it all makes me realize—clearly, that I can't even try to force myself into your life. There's no place for me. Even—even if you were kind—you sometimes seem to—to—to suggest that you would be—I'd be just a useless cog, soon to be dropped. It's all complete without me. But, for God's sake, I'm begging you, I'm begging you, Pearl, not to be kind to me for the rest of the time that we're here together."

"And what about me?" she flashed. "You've thought everything out from your own side, and you've just been telling it. Don't you think I've got a side, too? I guess so."

He looked at her in surprise, the emotion that had changed and broken his expression fading into wonderment and puzzle.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Kiss me, and I'll show you," she said audaciously. All the allurement, the softness and sweetness of the south was in her mouth and eyes.

"How can we go on like this?" His voice was a mere broken whisper. He yearned to her, leaned toward her, and yet refrained from holding her.

"Like this," she murmured, and threw her arms about him and laid her head on his heart, her face upturned to his.

"I told you"—so close was she held that she scarcely knew that she was breathing—"I told you—that if I once held you in my arms I'd never let you go."

"You may have told yourself; you never told me before. But I'm content."

"Content! That's no word for this," he cried between kisses. The mounting tide he had feared had become a mighty torrent sweeping away all his carefully built up mental barriers, and with that obliterating flood came a sense of power and freedom. All the youth in his heart rose and claimed its share of life and love and happiness.

"Let me go," she said at last, and drew away from him, flushed as a dawn and rapturous as a sunrise.

"No, never again," and stretched out his arms, but she slipped behind the table, putting it between them. "Sit down," she commanded, "and build up the fire. I want to talk, talk a long time, all night maybe."

"I hope so," he said ardently, and, obeying her, stooped to place fresh logs on the embers. "But what is there to talk about? We've said and will continue to say all there is in the world worth saying. I love you. Do you love me?"

"Maybe you won't want to say that after you've heard me." She had leaned forward, her arms on her knees, her eyes on the flames which leaped from dry twig to dry twig of the burning logs and on the shower of sparks which every minute or so swept up the chimney.

"You hit it off pretty well when you said that all I really cared for was money and jewels and my dancing and the big audiences and all that." Her eyes had narrowed so that the gleaming light that shone through her lashes was like a mere line of fire. "You see, I got to play the game. I got to. Nothing but winning and winning big ever's going to suit me. I saw that when I was awful young. I sort of looked out on life and it seemed to me that most people spent their lives like flies, flying around a while without any purpose, trying to buzz in the sun if they could, and by and by dropping off the window pane."

"Nothing but winning will suit you," he said drearily. "You are only repeating what I told you." All the life, the passion had gone out of his voice. "And I'm no prize, heaven knows!"

"I ain't through yet," she said. "I never did talk much. I guess I'm going to talk more to-night than I ever talked in my life, but I always saw everything that was going on around me, and it didn't take me long to make out that all you'll get in life is a kick and a crust if you haven't got some kind of power in your hands."

"God, you're hard, hard as iron!" The room rang with the echoes of his mirthless laughter. "Five, three minutes ago, you were in my arms, soft, yielding, trembling, giving me back kiss for kiss, and now you sit there expounding your merciless philosophy."

"It ain't me that's merciless," she returned, apparently unmoved, "it's life. You think my dancing's great, so does everybody; so it is. Well, it didn't grow. I made it." Here she lifted her head with pride, and folded her arms on her chest. "Maybe you don't think it took some training. Maybe you don't think it took some will and grit when I was a little kid to keep right on at my exercises when I ached so bad that the tears would run down my cheeks all the time I was at them. My mother knew that you had to begin young and keep at 'em all the time, but mom never would have had the nerve to keep me to it. She used often to cry with me.

"When I was a girl I'd liked to have had a good time, just in that careless way like other girls, but I gave that up, too, so's I could work at my dancing. When I'd get tired and blue I'd look at the stones I'd begun to collect with the money I'd earned. I'm hard, yes, I guess you're right. I guess you got to have a streak of hardness in you to be one of the biggest dancers in the world, or to be the biggest anything, but"—here she ran across the room and was down on her knees beside his chair—"I'm not hard any longer. Those jewels there," pointing to the table behind her, "they don't mean a thing to me any longer, nor my dancing, either, nor money, nor applause, nor anything in the world but you."

He shrank away from her as if he feared the subduing magnetism of her touch. "The useless cog to drop away when you get tired of him! I told you your life was all rounded and complete."

"It's not," she cried passionately, "without love. Without your love. I've got it and you can't take it away from me."

He brushed the wing of hair back from his pallid face. "My love!" His voice seemed to drip the bitterness of gall. "Where in heaven's name is there any place for it?"

"There isn't much room for anything else," she returned, "and that's the truth. I've told you that all those things that you say make my life complete, don't mean that," she snapped her long fingers, "not that to me any more. I've told you that I'd give them all up for you if you asked me, but," and here she swept to her feet, as if upborne by a rush of earnestness so intense and deeply felt that it was in itself a passion, "but I'll give 'em up, for it's a lot to give, for the man I know you are and—and not for the man that's been shirking life."

Since the first moments after she had begun to voice her experiences, and what he called her merciless philosophy, he had crumpled down in his chair, and when she had sprung up, he had risen perfunctorily and wearily to his feet, but at her last words he had straightened up as if involuntarily every muscle grew tense, an outward and visible indication of his mental attitude. Inherited and traditional pride was in the haughty and surprised uplift of his head; a bright flush had risen on his cheek and his eyes sparkled with a thousand wounded and angry reflections.

Whether or not she had intended to produce this effect by her words, she was undaunted by it, and went on: "Jose tells me that you got a big place in England, just waiting for you to come and claim it, and you quit it and everything there because a girl turned you down. It was sure a baby act."

"I—" he began to interrupt her. There were few men who would have cared to ignore that chilled steel quality of Seagreave's voice or, for the matter of that, the chilled steel look on his face.

But there were certain emotions the Pearl had never known, and they included remorse and fear. "I ain't finished yet," the gesture with which she imposed his silence held her accustomed languor. "I got to say that the man—that's you—that fought all through the Boer war was no shirker, and the man who did some of the things you did in India—you got some kind of a medal, didn't you?—what was it Jose called you?—soldier of fortune—well, you weren't a quitter, anyway."

She stretched out her arms to him and smiled, her compelling heart-shattering smile. Ardor enveloped her like an aura; the beauty and color of her were like fragrance on the air. "That's the kind of man I want to marry, Harry, not a man that's willing to live outside of life and work, and stay dead and buried here in these mountains."

He did not bend to her by an inch. Her smiles and her ardor splintered against chilled steel and fell unheeded. "Is there anything else?" he asked, after a slight interval of silence, during which he had the appearance of waiting with a pronounced and punctilious courtesy for further words from her.

She made no answer, merely continued to look at him, but he, apparently unmindful and indifferent to that gaze, lifted his book from the table beside him and, still standing, because she did so, began to read.

For a moment or two she seemed dazed and then, with trembling fingers, she gathered up her jewels and placed them in the little black bag.

This task accomplished, she started with all the scornful grace, the indifferent languor of a Spanish duchess to sweep from the room, but in passing him and noting him still absorbed in his book, her hot blood flushed her cheek, her eyes glittered with angry fire. Her slight pause caused him to look up and, seeing the anger on her face, he smiled amusedly, insufferably. The next second she sprang at him like a cat and slapped him across his insolently smiling face, and then flung Spanish oaths at him with such force and heat that they seemed to splutter in falling upon the chill of the air. Then she flashed from the room.

But the maddening smile still lingered on his lips as he bent to pick up the book her blow had sent flying to the floor. And, still smiling, he stood for a moment caressing the white dents her fingers had left on his cheek. Finally he replenished the fire, filled and lighted his pipe and, drawing his chair near to the hearth, sat, thinking, thinking, the greater part of the night.

Pearl was out early the next morning, and walked halfway down the hill. When she returned to the cabin she found Seagreave sitting in his chair by the hearth as if he had not moved during the night; his haggard gaze was fixed on the dead ashes of the fire. Without speaking to him, Pearl stooped down and, with some paper and bits of wood, began to build up a blaze again.

He peered at her a moment as if she were a vision, then got up very stiffly as if he had not moved for hours, and began to assist her, mechanically following the usual routine of preparing breakfast.

When it was ready they sat down opposite each other as was their custom, and made a pretense of eating. With the exception of a perfunctory remark or so the meal passed in silence. Pearl evidently had no intention of apologizing for her behavior of the night before. Her manner toward him was that of one who had relegated him to the position of the tables and chairs, and intended to take no more notice of him.

Taking it for granted that that was the relation she wished sustained between them, Seagreave gravely adopted her attitude, and for the next few days if they spoke at all it was principally about the work that was going on down at the crevasse. Never had Harry occupied himself so constantly and so feverishly, for the most part outside the cabin, chopping and sawing diligently at a huge pile of wood, and in his intervals of leisure he spent a great deal of time down the hill by the mountain of snow, watching its almost magical vanishing.

"There is a great crowd down at the ravine to-night," he said to Pearl, one evening at supper. "They are working with torches, and I think they will probably have some kind of a bridge swung over by midnight. I managed to signal to them a while ago, and they know that we are safe now. If—if you want to sit up to-night," his voice sounded strained and perfunctory, "I think you could possibly get over before morning."

The shadow which had fallen upon her face in the last day or two deepened a little. "It will be cold out there at night." She caught at the first excuse which came into her mind. "It will be better to wait and go down after breakfast."

He acquiesced with a nod, but made no answer in words, and soon after he left the room, and she, later, peeping cautiously out from the curtain behind the window, saw him walking back and forth before the cabin.

It was an hour or two later when he opened the door and entered. She did not hear him. She was standing, her elbow on the mantel-piece and her cheek on her hand, looking down into the fire. His footsteps roused her from her reverie and she looked up, in that moment of surprise, forgetful of self and therefore self-revealing. Thus she stood for one fleeting second, holding him with her smile, her whole being seeming to rush out and meet and encompass him and embrace him. Then her eyelashes drooped long and black on her cheek, and her face was all aflame with color.

He stood still a second, breathing hard. Then from the shadow he hurled himself into that zone of glowing firelight where she stood. A white flame passed over his face and lighted his eyes with that burning, incandescent glow that only those cold, blue eyes can show. Primeval, all preliminary bowing and scraping in the minuet of wooing ignored, he saw his heart's desire and seized it, lifting the Pearl in his arms, crushing her against his breast, until she, dazed for the moment, lay captured and captive.

But her second of surprised, involuntary non-resistance served her well. Harry looked into her eyes and forgot his vigilance; and with a twist Pearl slipped through his arms and was across the room. She stood against the wall of the cabin, her head thrown back, a smile on her white lips, her eyes daring him.

Seagreave took no dares. It was a part of his creed. He was across the room in a step, his arms outstretched as if to clasp her.

But Pearl held him with her eyes until at least she covered her face with her hands and wept and leaned toward him, and again Seagreave caught her in his arms with a murmur of passionate and inarticulate words. "I love you, I love you," he whispered, his lips seeking hers.

"Pearl, forgive me. I—I—forgot myself, forgive me. Why, you are as safe here as in your father's cabin. It will never happen again. I'll never touch you again unless you let me. Why, Pearl," with a tremulous attempt at a joke, "for the rest of the time that we're here you can keep me locked up in the other room if you want to, and just pass my food through the door now and then when you feel like it."

"Oh, Harry," she was still sobbing, "I'm such a devil. All my life I've been trying to see what I could get. I set out to make everything and everybody pay me, and I never got anything but chaff; money and jewels and applause—all chaff. The only happiness is giving, and I want to give, give, give to you. That's what I been longing to do ever since I loved you, and all I could do was to call you names—a quitter and a shirker." She wept afresh. "And the worst of it is I mean it, I wish I didn't, but I do."

"But you were right," he said, "good and right, too. You hurt my man's vanity, and I got nasty—sarcastic, you know. I've got you to thank forever for bringing myself right home to me—showing me to myself. I was a morbid, love-sick boy, who indulged in so much self-pity that he thought he was a very fine romantic figure, running off from his responsibilities and burying himself in the ends of the earth."

"I was jealous, too, of that girl you quit things for, that girl that was like violets and white roses. I ain't like 'em."

"Jealous! You! It wasn't long that I remembered her, but you were right again—I liked that life. I'd got used to it. The other kind seemed impossible to me—I've been a quitter and a shirker—just what you called me—but I'm going back home to take it all up again, or if you would rather, I'll stay here and work mines in these mountains, or help reclaim the desert—if you'll marry me, Pearl."

"But I'm the Black Pearl—a dancer. I don't see how I can begin to be anything else now; but I will, I'll be anything you ask me, Harry," throwing her arms about his neck, "I will."

He laughed and held her closer still. "I'll never ask you to be anything else. 'The Black Pearl—a dancer,' that's enough for me. You shall have all the joy of your gift—its expression. I'm not such a selfish animal as to ask you to give that up, so that I can keep you—you beautiful, tropical bird—in a cage, just to gratify my sense of possession—and watch you mope and pine, because I've kept you from your flights. No, sweetheart, you shall dance, and have your big audiences that inspire you, and the applause you love ... and then you'll come back to me, and I'll be waiting for you and working—always working. I promise you that, Pearl. But," fixing determined eyes on her, "I'll not dangle around after you, and patch up your rows with your managers, and engage your maids, nor be known as the Black Pearl's husband, by the Lord, no! I'll do my own work in the world, and stand and fall by my own merit, if there's any in me. But kiss me, Pearl, kiss me."

"Then it's the last kiss till to-morrow," she smiled, "for it's past midnight now."

The morning dawned, a blare of sunlight. Pearl, glancing from the window just before they ate their early breakfast, could see that bridge was in place. Both she and Harry were quiet. It was the last meal together in the cabin, and more than once tears filled her eyes and ran down her cheeks as she made a pretense of eating. "They're happy tears, Harry, honest, they are," she assured him. "I guess I'm kind of locoed at the thought of seeing Pop and Bob and Hughie again. Come on, let's hurry down now and meet them." She stood up and drained her coffee cup and then threw her cape about her. "Come on." She held out her hand to him and smiled.



CHAPTER XV

The sun-flooded hillside showed plainly the path of the avalanche; blank, featureless it lay, without sheltering tree or rock to diversify its bald monotony. But it was bare no longer, for the brown earth was covering her nakedness with a delicate mist of green. Beyond the sweep of the avalanche the maples were swinging their tassels, and the swelling buds of the oaks and aspens showed that they were almost ready to burst into leaf; the air was full of bird calls and fluttering wings, and the breeze, although chill, seemed ineffably soft in comparison with its recent rigorous blasts.

Pearl and Seagreave had gone but a short distance from the cabin when suddenly Pearl shielded her eyes with her hand. "Look," she cried excitedly, and pointed to two men who were standing down by the bridge evidently awaiting them, "I can't quite see from here, but it is, it must be, Bob and Pop."

She almost flew down the hill after that, and Seagreave, his face suddenly set in lines of determination, kept pace with her. He had noticed, even if she had not, that those two motionless figures at the bridge had not advanced one step to meet her, but were maintaining an attitude portentously watchful, it seemed to him, and boding ill for the warmth and spontaneity of the welcome she so evidently expected.

But Pearl appeared to see nothing of this, and as she drew near the two who awaited her, she would have flown like a bird into her father's arms. But before she could throw her arms about him he caught her wrists and pushed her back a step or two anything but gently.

"Why weren't you down at the bridge last night?" he asked sternly. The old man had changed since the avalanche. There were anxious deep hollows about his eyes which were at once brighter and more sunken than ever. His parchment skin looked livid and lifeless and his mouth had tightened until it was drawn in and pinched.

"Why weren't you down at the gully waiting for us?" he asked again. "The bridge was across at midnight. The boys have been working night and day to get you out, and this is the way you act, hiding up there in that cabin like you'd as lief stay there as not."

"Yes, Pearl, why weren't you down to meet us?" Bob Flick spoke for the first time, his slow, soft voice was placating and yet it was evident that his sympathies were with Gallito. "The boys had the place all lit up with torches while they worked, and your Pop and I waited half the night for you down here. Why didn't you come?" Neither of the men had so far even glanced at Seagreave, but ignored him as thoroughly as if he were not there.

Pearl looked at Flick a moment in frowning incomprehension. Petted, spoiled child that she was, she could not bear to be scolded where she had expected a rapturous welcome. From Flick to her father she glanced, and then back again. "What's the matter with you two?" she cried. "Are you mad just because I didn't come chasing down the hill in the dead of night? How did I know that the boys were going to get the bridge across at midnight?"

"Because, if you'd been the sort of girl you ought to be, you wouldn't have stayed a minute longer in that cabin than you could have helped. You'd have stood down by the gully all night long just to show the folks in the camp that you wouldn't stay in that cabin after there was any chance at all for you to get away," Gallito answered her before Bob Flick got a chance. "What made you stay up there? You and him, too," he pointed one, long, gnarled forefinger at Seagreave, "have got to answer me that question. And there's another one, too, and you'll answer it."

Again Pearl stared at him, and again she turned her puzzled eyes on Bob Flick. Then, as the meaning of their attitude flashed over her, she fell back a pace or two, her face grown white. "Dios!" she murmured, with stiff lips, a sob rising in her throat.

Then she tossed high her head in hot resentment. Her mouth was set in a thin scarlet line of obstinacy, her eyes burned, but their expression was unreadable. With a slow movement of her body, expressing infinite scorn, she swung away from her father and her lover and, with her eyes upon the far, blue ranges, superbly ignored them.

Bob Flick shot a warning glance at Gallito, who was about to speak, and took a hasty step forward. "Look here, Pearl," he said conciliatingly, "don't mind your Pop. The strain on him's been awful. It's been hard on all of us. You sure gave us some terrible days, not knowing whether you were alive or dead, but we all kind of figured from the direction that the snow-slide took that it missed the cabin, and we wouldn't believe anything else but that you were as much alive as ever and as anxious to see us as we were to see you. And, Pearl, listen," striving to divert her gaze from those dim, blue ranges, "we ain't been idle. There's some great news for you. You tell her, Gallito."

"Yes," the Spaniard's tone softened a little and he lifted his head with a touch of pride, "it sure is great news. I been in correspondence with Sweeney and he opened up the matter of a contract again. I been dickering with him just the same as if we knew that you were safe and alive. I wouldn't let myself think anything else; and the result, Pearl," he paused, his eyes scanning her face, "the result is that he's just doubled his offer of last year and will play you over a circuit twice as big, the cities only. How does that strike you?"

But there was no answering enthusiasm on Pearl's face, not even a gleam of interest. Gallito and Flick looked at each other in dismay. Her indifference was genuine, they saw that clearly. There was no affected disdain in her manner of receiving the news. It was simply a matter which did not touch her at all.

Seeing this, a slow, burning flush crept up into her father's face, his jaws worked. "Pearl, did you hear?" he demanded, "because if you didn't, you'd better pay attention, and pay attention quick. I've accepted for you, given my word to Sweeney that if you were alive you'd take this offer. And now you and me are going to leave Colina within a few hours, and you're going to leave for good. Understand?"

She smiled in slow, indifferent scorn and answered nothing, and her attitude maddened Gallito. "What do you mean by acting this way?" he cried. "Let's get down to it. Why weren't you down at the gully last night? Wouldn't he let you?" Again he pointed an accusing finger at Seagreave, who stood a little apart watching the scene with folded arms. "Pearl, you answer me, for I'm going to ask you that question straight out now. Ain't you just as good as when you came?"

But Pearl's seven or seventeen devils were in full possession of her now, and one of them, the demon of silence, stood her in good stead, for she knew intuitively that this attitude of non-explanation would prove far more irritating to her inquisitors than the vials of her wrath poured freely upon them.

But Gallito was in a white fury by this time. "By God!" he cried again, "you will answer me. You will tell me, and tell me now."

"I'll be hanged first," she flashed the words at him as a snake darts its fangs.

"And I'll be hanged if you'll ask her such questions before me," cried Seagreave, speaking for the first time.

Her father looked at him with a slow and bitter smile, then he gave a little nod of acrid comprehension. "You keep out of this, Harry Seagreave," he said, in a low, cold, deadly voice. "This is between the girl and me. Pearl, you come with me—now. We leave Colina, as I told you, within a few hours. You come now." He took a step or two down the hill as if expecting that she would follow him.

A wailing wind blew down from the peaks. The mocking bark of a coyote sounded near at hand in those wild solitudes, a bird flew from one tree to another, and the sound of a breaking twig was like a pistol shot.

Moments passed and still Pearl had not obeyed her father's command. It was not repeated, which was characteristic of Gallito. He merely waited until at last she lifted her eyes and unwaveringly met his. "I'm not going," she said clearly.

Harry made a quick, impetuous step toward her, but before he could reach her, her father had caught her by the wrist again and swept her aside.

"Look here, Gallito," cried Seagreave, "since she won't explain, you've got to listen to me. I—"

"I've told you to keep out of this, Seagreave," interrupted Gallito, in his harsh, grating voice. "I'll deal with you later."

But at the sound of Seagreave's voice the color had come back to Pearl's cheek, the light to her eyes. Hands on hips, she swung her skirts and surveyed Bob Flick and her father with a scornful, slanting gaze. "I didn't know that there was anybody in the world that would dare ask me such questions, even you, Pop. And making arrangements with Sweeney without waiting to consult me! And ordering me to leave Colina on two or three hours' notice! Dios!" She spread her hands out on either side of her as if pushing away an impossible thing. "I can hardly believe it. I didn't answer you, Pop, nor you, Bob, because I was trying hard to take things in. But now," she turned to Seagreave, her head lifted higher yet in the glory of joy and pride, "I'm not going to leave Colina—yet, and I'm not going to sign up with Sweeney; am I, Harry?"

Seagreave passed her father and was beside her in two strides. "You're going to do as you please," he said.

She leaned toward him, smiling, her fugitively sweet, tantalizing smile; and, oblivious of the others, Seagreave caught her to him as if he would hold her against the world.

And, seeing this, Bob Flick turned and walked down the hill with never a backward glance.

Not so Gallito; his eyes had darkened, those fierce hawk's eyes; his face was livid. "Pearl," his voice grated in his throat, "you can't make a fool of both me and yourself like this. You are a fool of a woman like all the rest, and because I have the bad luck to be your father I must save you from your own madness. You've got your big chance, the chance you've been waiting for, and you're not going to throw it away now, just because you been staying up in that cabin alone with him until you've lost your wits about him." He indicated Seagreave with a contemptuous jerk of the thumb.

"Seagreave," in cold fury, "you're a damned thief to take advantage of her this way. Now, Pearl, you come on."

He seized her by the wrist and would have drawn her roughly from Harry's encircling arm. She resisted, and Harry, in the strength of his indignation, unloosed the old man's grasp and drew her hastily away. But the touch of his hands had roused in Gallito fresh rage, and with almost unbelievable quickness he lifted his heavy, gnarled stick and swung it above Seagreave's head. Harry leaped back, near, perilously near, the edge of the ravine. The soft, moist earth crumbled beneath his feet; for a second he tottered on the edge, and then went down like a shot.

Pearl stood arrested in that first, quick rush of hers, frozen, gazing in wild unbelief at the spot where Harry had disappeared. As for Gallito, he also gazed almost uncomprehendingly, until the expression of surprise on his livid face gave way to a saturnine and vindictive satisfaction.

"He did it himself," he muttered, "the fool! I never touched him." Then, shrugging his shoulders and spreading out his hands as if well content to leave the matter to fate, he turned and began to walk down the hill, still muttering as he went.

This roused Pearl from her momentary trance. "Father," she cried wildly, "you must help me. You tried to hurt him and now you've got to help me. We must get him. Father, father," she babbled, running after him, "you must stay, you must help me, you must. You can't go and leave him. Oh, stay, stay, and I'll do anything, anything in the world. I'll sign the contract. I'll do anything."

But Gallito went on as if he did not hear her. His own belief was that Harry was done for. There was not one chance in a thousand that he was alive, one chance in a million, considering the depth of the ravine. Well, better so. His conscience was clear. He had not struck him, but had merely lifted his stick in self-defense after Seagreave had laid hands on him. As for Pearl, she would eventually turn to him and agree to his wishes, there was nothing else for her to do. In the meantime, by leaving her to herself, he avoided the unpleasant sound and sight of her grief and reproaches. Therefore, in spite of her passionate pleading, he went on.

And Pearl, finally realizing that she could hope nothing from him, turned and ran back to the ravine. There she threw herself flat on the ground and, groaning and sobbing, drew herself to the edge of the cliff and gazed down into those depths of purple shadow. Much of the snow still lingered, and for a moment in the white, dazzling glare of the sunlight on the steep walls, she could see nothing. Then, as her eye became accustomed to those flashing refractions of light, she gave a loud, sobbing cry, her whole body became strangely limp and inert. For one dreadful moment she feared that she was going to faint. Then she drew on all the strength of her will and was herself again, ready in that moment of poignant relief to dare anything, do anything to save him.

For quite plainly she saw Harry. Instead of whirling down into those impenetrable depths and being buried in the mass of snow at the bottom, he had been caught almost miraculously on the out-curving trunks of two or three young pine trees growing close together and springing from a narrow out-cropping ledge of rock. It was not so very far down, at most not more than thirty feet. "Harry," she cried, "Harry," sending her voice ringing down the chasm; but he did not even stir at the sound, only the narrow walls gave back the echoes. The silence struck the chill of a new terror to her heart, and she sprang to her feet, gazing wildly about her in every direction.

"I must have help. I must have help," she muttered. But, oh, it would take so long to get men from the camp, and all the time she would be gone he would be lying there silent and motionless, perhaps—no, she shuddered, she would not even think the word.

Once more she sent her seeking, despairing gaze over the hillside, and then uttered a sharp, muffled exclamation, for, rising above the jagged walls of the ravine, and not many feet away, climbing, agilely and rapidly, she saw a man. A moment more and she bent forward in a state half of relief and half of superstitious terror, muttering a prayer, almost believing that it was a vision; and then, with a relief beyond all speech, she saw that it was Jose. She could not be mistaken.

He had pulled himself over the cliff by this time and had cautiously risen to his feet. Up and down the hill and in every direction he sent his sweeping, careful gaze, his far-sighted eyes taking in every detail of the landscape. Then he came toward Pearl, over the bare, brown earth, running low.

"Oh, Jose, Jose," she cried, almost hysterical in her relief, "Harry is down there," pointing to the cliff, "hurt, and you must help me get him up, you must."

"Carramba! So that was the noise and screaming I heard in my rock cell yonder, just as I was about to creep out and take a little air. I would not have dared to come so far if I had not seen you here alone." He threw himself on the ground and looked over the cliff. "Saints and devils! It is true. Poor Harry! But you and I cannot get him up alone."

"But we can, we must," she cried imperatively. "Go to his cabin quickly and bring some ropes. There is plenty of strong rope there. You can run more quickly than I. Go."

"But the risk." Jose shook his head dubiously. "I shall be in full sight all the way."

"What of it?" she cried frantically. "The moments pass and we are doing nothing. No one will see you. Oh, go." Then, as he still hesitated, a sudden thought struck her. She tore open the neck of her gown and drew out the little black leather bag of loose stones. "Look!" she pulled it open and held it out to him that he might see the gleaming jewels inside. "There, will that make it worth your while? They are yours, Jose, if you will only go."

With a low exclamation of surprise and admiration, Jose bent over them. Then he looked at Pearl, his eyes alive with darting gleams of avarice. He would have risked his life any time, almost without a thought, in order to gain them, and here without his even lifting a finger, they had fallen into his hands, straight out of heaven. It was evidently a reward for the patience with which he had borne the long days that he had lain hidden in Gallito's rock-hewn chamber in the Mont d'Or.

"It shall never be said of Crop-eared Jose that he left a friend in distress," he exclaimed virtuously, and, stuffing the little bag in his pocket, sped up the hill.

Uttering broken expressions of relief, Pearl again threw herself flat on the ground and gazed over the edge of the cliff. And, as she lay thus, moaning out passionately tender words which Harry, lying motionless and unconscious, could not hear, a sudden thought struck her. She would go to him. She looked down, far down where those rocky walls lost themselves in indefinite hazes and shuddered; but another glance at Harry and courage flowed to her again. She saw where, on the narrow projecting ledge and on the trunks of those up-springing pines, she could get a foothold near him, if it were but possible for her to climb down. Scanning the wall closely, it seemed to her rough and jagged enough for her to do so with comparative safety.

Just as she reached this decision, she heard a faint holloo from the same direction in which Jose had come and, turning her head quickly, she saw Mrs. Nitschkan hastening over the hill toward her.

"Gosh a'mighty!" exclaimed the gypsy, when she had come within speaking distance. "What kind of a howdy-do is this? I brought up a bite for Jose to eat and, although I've stood down there whistling my head off, he never poked his head out of the ground, the jack-rabbit! And the next thing I see is you lying flat in the mud."

"Oh, Nitschkan!" Tears of relief were streaming down Pearl's face. "Thank God that you've come. Harry fell over the cliff. We can see him, and Jose's gone to the cabin to get ropes."

With many exclamations of surprise Mrs. Nitschkan peered over the edge of the ravine. "Saved by them little sticks of pine trees and a piece of rock no wider than my foot! Ain't that the workings of Providence for you!"

"Is he—is he—do you think he is—" Pearl's voice broke in anguish.

"No, I don't. He ain't lookin' that way," said Mrs. Nitschkan, with such force and heartiness that Pearl was immediately reassured. "He's jus' got the sense knocked out of him. I don't jus' see yet how we're goin' to get the ropes fastened to him, so's he can be drug up."

"I'm going down to him. I'll fasten them."

"You! And yet I don't know but what it ain't best. It'll take all the strength Jose and I've got to draw him up careful and not go bumping him too much against the rocks."

Pearl took off her shoes, then, shutting her lips tightly and reassuring herself with the knowledge that the rock was rough and she was sure-footed, she lowered herself over the side of the ravine and reached for a foothold. Presently she found it, and then another. Slowly, with cut and bleeding hands, she made her way down. Half way, perhaps, she grasped a little bush which seemed to spring securely from the cliff and held tightly to this until she could grasp another jutting point of rock and then another bush, until at last, with a great sobbing sigh, she found her feet planted on what seemed sure ground. It was the trunks and the outspreading branches of the same pine trees which held Seagreave. She took a second to draw a long breath, and then, holding cautiously to a little branch, she bent over him.

With infinite tenderness she attempted to straighten out one leg which was doubled beneath him, but he moaned and sighed so that she desisted, seeing from the limp way that it lay that it was broken. He had evidently fallen on his back; and like a dagger zig-zagging its way through her heart was the thought, "What if that, too, were broken?"

Oh, how should they get him up without injuring him further and cruelly hurting him with the ropes. And he must be so cold. She shivered herself in the damp, icy air of this ravine. She called up to Mrs. Nitschkan to swing down to her her long cape, which she had discarded before beginning her climb. The gypsy did so carefully, but just as she let the end of it go a gust of wind swept it in slow circles down the ravine.

Mrs. Nitschkan uttered more or less profane exclamations of disgust; but Pearl said nothing. After her first feeling of intense disappointment, a new idea had come to her, and she hastened to act upon it. As quickly as she could with her torn fingers she unfastened her gown and slipped out of it, and then, unheeding Mrs. Nitschkan, who was scolding her like a magpie, she threw it over Seagreave, tucking it about him as best she could. The breath of the snow-damp air upon her shoulders and arms was like a bath of ice water, but she scarcely noticed it, for she heard Mrs. Nitschkan welcoming Jose.



He and the gypsy immediately began swinging great coils of rope over the cliff.

"Can you get the ropes under him, Pearl, and tie 'em in a kind of cradle?" called Mrs. Nitschkan.

"Of course," she answered, "if you and Jose will tell me how."

Then, under their direction, she managed to bind the ropes securely about Seagreave, moaning and weeping herself at the pain she evidently caused him, although he did not so far recover consciousness as to realize what was happening to him. When she had finished, she caught another swinging end of rope which they threw her and climbed up the cliff. She took a moment or two to get her breath, and then slowly and with all the care possible under the circumstances, they drew Seagreave up.

"Dios!" cried Jose, panting, "it is well that you two are so strong, because we have yet to get him to the cabin. Fortunately I, also, have great strength."

After some discussion it was finally decided that Pearl was to hasten on ahead and build up the fires and heat water, while Mrs. Nitschkan and Jose carried Harry up the hill.

It was for them a slow and difficult progress, but the cabin was finally reached and the gypsy and Jose laid him on his bed, undressed him and examined his injuries.

Presently Mrs. Nitschkan came into the outer room, where Pearl cowered beside the fire, her hands over her face. She caught imploringly at the other woman's skirt. "Oh, Nitschkan, what is it? Will he live? Tell me, tell me, quick."

"Things might be better and they might be worse, but," with rough good will, "you ain't no call to wear mourning yet. His back ain't hurt serious, but his left leg and his right arm are both broken and he's an awful lot cut and bruised, especially about the back and the head. I can set a leg myself, as good as most, and many a one have I done, but those that I've set 'em for don't always seem to have as good use of their limbs after as before. So if you want him as good as new again, you'd better have a doctor."

"Yes," agreed Jose, who had come into the room. "They are bad breaks. I, too, can set a leg or an arm, but, as you say, Nitschkan, those for whom I have done it have usually been ungrateful enough not to use them right."

Pearl staggered to her feet. "I will go," she said, "if you two will only stay here and look after him, while I am gone. Oh dear Jose, promise me that you will not leave Nitschkan alone. You can hide here in the cabin when you see me coming with the doctor."

Jose's fingers touched the little black bag in his pocket. "Saints and devils!" he cried, expanding his chest, "only a dog would refuse you. Of course I will stay."



CHAPTER XVI

For the first few weeks after Harry's accident Pearl's consciousness of the external events in the world beyond the confines of the four walls of the cabin seemed obliterated. She could never remember afterward whether the rain fell or the days were flooded with sunshine. All of her energies and interests were absorbed in one issue—his recovery. Fortunately, his injuries proved more painful than dangerous, and were necessarily slow in the mending; but the nursing was arduous, and Pearl might have found it difficult indeed had it not been for the assistance of the two mountain women and Jose.

It would be another matter to define correctly the motives that impelled that debonair bandit to stand by her side so manfully in the face of Gallito's wrath and reiterated prohibitions. It might have been a conscientious wish to earn the jewels, over the possession of which he had not ceased to gloat, or it might have been an impish desire to annoy Gallito. Again, it might have been gratitude toward Seagreave, sympathy with the Pearl, or, as easily the revolt of Jose's volatile nature against the monotony of life in the narrow confines of his rock chamber.

But to Jose's danger, as to the passing days, Pearl was alike oblivious, and it was not until Harry was able to sit up again for brief periods, that she became aware of times and seasons, of other persons and of the world of human interests and reactions. She awoke to a realization of these facts with a sort of wonder. She looked abroad over the hillsides and saw a new world. The long-awaited spring had sped up from the valleys of mist, and at the wave of her white wand the mountains had bloomed with a delicate iridescence—the luster on young leaves and shining blades of grass. It was then that she also began to apprehend something of the nature of Jose's difficulties.

"I must be more virtuous than I thought," he explained to her one day, not without a touch of complacence, "for if the Devil were truly my friend, he would fly away with your father. Those hawk's eyes of his are ever on me and he orders me daily not to leave the mine. If I could but cook for him," he added mournfully, "he would soon see reason, for," with customary boastfulness, "I have yet to see the man whose opinions I could not change with a single dish. I, Crop-eared Jose, have won freedom more than once on an omelette, and have gained the sympathy and interest of those set against me, with a single sauce. See, he even threatens me because I am true to my friends, but," and here he adopted his most wheedling tone, "if you only would make up with him, and I could but cook him one supper, here in this cabin, and let him win two or three games at cards from me, all would be well again."

"Ah, if I only could," sighed Pearl, "but he wouldn't listen to me unless I consented to leave Harry and sign with Sweeney. You know how set he is, when he makes his mind up. No, he won't listen to me unless I give in about this contract."

Jose nodded without speaking. For once he appeared to be turning something over in his mind. In truth, he was; he felt now that his comfort and safety very largely depended upon a reconciliation between Pearl and her father, and he was prepared to take long chances in an attempt to effect this. Therefore he informed Gallito that from certain remarks Pearl had made from time to time, he, Jose, was convinced that her heart was greatly softened toward her father, and that for his part he was also convinced that she desired nothing more than to see Gallito again.

The old Spaniard knew Jose too well to put much faith in any of his utterances, but, nevertheless, inspired by a vague hope that Pearl might have repented her decision and wearied of her bargain, he climbed the hill to Seagreave's cabin the next afternoon to see her.

Harry had been sitting up longer than usual that day, and Jose and Pearl had helped him back to his couch in the inner room, where he now lay asleep, and Pearl had resumed her seat in the open door, where she sat gazing out at the wonderful panorama spread before her and idly enjoying the sight, the sound, the fragrance of early summer. Blue ranges, an infinite succession of them, stretching away to an illimitable and expanding horizon, floating in faint pearl hazes, but the hills near at hand were vividly green, their varied monotony of tone broken here and there by great waves of pink and blue wild flowers. Birds were flying from tree to tree, calling and singing, and there fell pleasantly upon Pearl's ears the ripple and splash of the mountain brook. The joy in her heart at Harry's recovery mingled pleasantly with nature's joy in her prodigal, flowering summer.