Wolf Cub whined in eager circles.  Douglas laid his cheek against her lips.  A faint warmth.  He shook her, frantically, and beat her hands with his.  Then he rose and balanced her on her feet.  She hung limply in his arms.  He huddled her before the fire again and forced some whiskey down her throat.  He manipulated her inert body until when he lifted her again onto her feet she was able to stand.  Still half in his arms.  Then he forced her to stumble back and forth beside the fire.

“Judith!  Judith!  Judith!”

“It’s you, Doug!” weakly and with bewildered eyes.

“O Jude, how could you!  How could you!”

“Poor Buster—­dead!” muttered Judith.

“I know!  I found him.  You must keep going, Judith.  Lean on me but keep going.”

But circulation was returning to her strong young body.  Shortly she was able to stand alone and to ask Doug where he had come from.

“My camp is up the mountain a ways.  Why didn’t you have a fire?”

“Lost my pack when I lost Buster.  Lost my match-safe when I fell with the little wild mare this afternoon.”

“I’m going to take you back up to my camp, Judith.”

“I don’t think I can make it, Doug.  It would have to be a foot climb.”

“You must make it.  There is nothing at all here to keep us both from freezing to death.  We’ll start now, while I can still see the fire I left up there.”

“I can’t, Doug!  You bring your camp down here.”

“This is no shelter at all.  I’m in the big cedars above here.  You’ve got to have some hot food right off.  We will leave the little wild mare here until morning.”

With Wolf Cub hanging to their heels, they started the upward climb.  Judith gave to the last ounce of her depleted strength.  They reached the still glowing ashes of Doug’s fire on their hands and knees, and lay beside it till the warning chill brought Douglas to his feet.  He chopped more wood, rekindled the fire in the center of the camp, and established Judith beside it on some blankets.  Then he prepared some coffee and bacon for her.  She ate ravenously.  Douglas watched her with satisfaction radiating from every line of his snow-burned face.

“Are you warm now, Jude?” he asked her when she had begun on her second cup of coffee.

“Well, not exactly warm, but I sure am thawing!”

“As soon as you are warm, I’ll let you sleep.  That’s right, let old Wolf Cub snuggle up against you.  He’s better than a hot-water bottle.  Are you surprised to see me, Judith?”

She looked up at him through weary eyes that still held the old unquenchable fires in their depths.

“I didn’t know.  If you had gone off on a long hunt for the sky pilot, you wouldn’t have heard yet that I was gone.  Did you find him?”

“I never even got to look for him.  I was down at Inez’ trying to sweat some truth out of Scott when your mother came in with word you were gone.  Peter and I started after you at once.”