Judith sprang to her feet and Douglas rose with her.  She began to walk rapidly up and down before the fire.  It was so evident that a tempest was raging within her that Douglas watched her with astonishment and dismay.  The sunshine flickered gloriously through the cedar branches.  Wolf Cub gave cry after a coyote.  It might have been a moment or a lifetime to the young rider before Judith halted in front of him.  Her tear-stained face was tense.  Her wide eyes burned with a light he never before had seen in them.

“And if,” she exclaimed, “I told you that I loved you; that for years I had fought off a love for you that was like a burning flame in my heart; if I told you that to me you are as beautiful as all the lovers in the world; but that I never, never would give myself to you in marriage, what would you say?”

Douglas’ gloved hands clenched and unclenched, as he fought for self control.  After a moment he managed to return, steadily, “I’d ask you why?”

The tensity of Judith’s expression did not relax.  “I’ve told you why.  I cannot bear to think of killing love by marriage.  And it always works so.  Always.  And yet, O Douglas, I love you, love you!”

Douglas threw back his head with a sudden breath, swept Judith into his arms and kissed her, kissed her with all the ardor of years of repression.  Judith clung to him as if she could not let him go.  And yet, when he lifted his face from hers, she said, none the less firmly because her voice was husky: 

“But, Douglas, I won’t marry you!”

Douglas lifted his chin.  “Perhaps you won’t, my dearest!  I’m not going to let that thought spoil the big moment of my life.”

He put his hands on her shoulders and looked at her, at the long brilliant face beneath the beaver cap, at the fine steel slenderness of her, and then he said in his low-voiced way: 

“O Judith!  Judith! why didn’t you tell me, long ago!”

“Because nothing would satisfy you but marriage,” replied Judith, with a half sob.

Douglas smiled wistfully.  “But I haven’t changed!  Why did you tell me now?”

“I didn’t want to!  I didn’t mean to!  But I couldn’t help it.  You saved my life, Doug!  It ought to belong to you, but O, I can’t give it to you!  I must go on.  I must find out what is the thing I’m meant to do.  I must!”

Douglas turned from her troubled face to gaze at the mad descent that must be made before Johnson’s Basin could be won.  Then he put up his hand and turned her face to follow his glance.

“Judith, do you think that I can let you go down there?  If it was impossible before, think how I feel about it now I know that you love me.  Somehow we have got to compromise on this thing, my dearest.”

Judith clung to him.  “I don’t want to leave you, Douglas.  But I can’t go back to Lost Chief.  I can’t!”

Douglas held her close and for a long moment there was no sound in the wide solitudes except the Wolf Cub’s faint hunting-cry.