Whaley was an expert woodsman.  He plunged into the forest, without hesitation, so surely that she felt he must know where he was going.  The girl followed at his heels, head down against the blast.

Before this day she had not for months taken a long trip on webs.  Leg muscles, called into use without training, were sore and stiff.  In the darkness the soft snow piled up on the shoes.  Each step became a drag.  The lacings and straps lacerated her tender flesh till she knew her duffles were soaked with blood.  More than once she dropped back so far that she lost sight of Whaley.  Each time he came back with words of encouragement and good cheer.

“Not far now,” he would promise.  “Across a little bog and then camp.  Keep coming.”

Once he found her sitting on the snow, her back to a tree.

“You’d better go on alone.  I’m done,” she told him drearily.

He was not angry at her.  Nor did he bully or browbeat.

“Tough sledding,” he said gently.  “But we’re ’most there.  Got to keep going.  Can’t quit now.”

He helped Jessie to her feet and led the way down into a spongy morass.  The brush slapped her face.  It caught in the meshes of her shoes and flung her down.  The miry earth, oozing over the edges of the frames, clogged her feet and clung to them like pitch.

Whaley did his best to help, but when at last she crept up to the higher ground beyond the bog every muscle ached with fatigue.

They were almost upon it before she saw a log cabin looming out of the darkness.

She sank on the floor exhausted.  Whaley disappeared into the storm again.  Sleepily she wondered where he was going.  She must have dozed, for when her eyes next reported to the brain, there was a brisk fire of birch bark burning and her companion was dragging broken bits of dead and down timber into the house.

“Looks like she’s getting her back up for a blizzard.  Better have plenty of fuel in,” he explained.

“Where are we?” she asked drowsily.

“Cabin on Bull Creek,” he answered.  “Better get off your footwear.”

While she did this her mind woke to activity.  Why had he brought her here?  They had no food.  How would they live if a blizzard blew up and snowed them in?  And even if they had supplies, how could she live alone for days with this man in a cabin eight by ten?

As though he guessed what was in her mind, he answered plausibly enough one of the questions.

“No chance to reach Faraway.  Too stormy.  It was neck or nothing.  Had to take what we could get.”

“What’ll we do if—­if there’s a blizzard?” she asked timidly.

“Sit tight.”

“Without food?”

“If it lasts too long, I’ll have to wait for a lull and make a try for Faraway.  No use worrying.  We can’t help what’s coming.  Got to face the music.”

Her eyes swept the empty cabin.  No bed.  No table.  One home-made three-legged stool.  A battered kettle.  It was an uninviting prospect, even if she had not had to face possible starvation while she was caged with a stranger who might any minute develop wolfish hunger for her as he had done only forty-eight hours before.