“But I can’t stay here?” incredulously.

“Why not?  Why, that’s all right!  The boys’ll come up an’ dig us out to-morrow or day after.  There’s plenty o’ wood an’ you can have my bed.”  And with no more ado than that, the Girl went over to the bed to remove the covers and make it ready for his occupancy.

“I wouldn’t think of taking that,” protested the man, stoutly, while his face clouded over.

The Girl felt a thrill at the note of regard in his voice and hastened to explain: 

“I never use it cold nights; I always roll up in my rug in front of the fire.”  All of a sudden she broke out into a merry little laugh.  “Jest think of it stormin’ all this time an’ we didn’t know it!”

But Johnson was not in a laughing mood.  Indeed, he looked very grave and serious when presently he said: 

“But people coming up here and finding me might—­”

The Girl looked up at him in blank amazement.

“Might what?” And then, while she waited for his answer, two shots in close succession rang out in the night with great distinctness.

There was no mistaking the nearness of the sound.  Instantly scenting trouble and alert at the possibility of danger, Johnson inquired: 

“What’s that?  What’s that?”

“Wait!  Wait!” came back from the Girl, unconsciously in the same tone, while she strained her ears for other sounds.  She did not have long to wait, however, before other shots followed, the last ones coming from further away, so it seemed, and at greater intervals.

“They’ve got a road agent—­it’s the posse—­p’r’aps they’ve got Ramerrez or one o’ his band!” suddenly declared the Girl, at the same time rushing over to the window for some verification of her words.  But, as before, the wind was beating with great force against the frosted panes, and only a vast stretch of snow met her gaze.  Turning away from the window she now came towards him with:  “You see, whoever it is, they’re snowed in—­they can’t get away.”

Johnson knitted his brows and muttered something under his breath which the Girl did not catch.

Again a shot was fired.

“Another thief crep’ into camp,” coldly observed the Girl almost simultaneously with the report.

Johnson winced.

“Poor devil!” he muttered.  “But of course, as you say, he’s only a thief.”

In reply to which the Girl uttered words to the effect that she was glad he had been caught.

“Well, you’re right,” said Johnson, thoughtfully, after a short silence; then determinedly and in short jerky sentences, he went on:  “I’ve been thinking that I must go—­tear myself away.  I have very important business at dawn—­imperative business . . .”

The Girl, who now stood by the table folding up the white cloth cover, watched him out of the corner of her eye, take down his coat from the peg on the wall.

“Ever sample one o’ our mountain blizzards?” she asked as he slipped on his coat.  “In five minutes you wouldn’t know where you was.  Your important business would land you at the bottom of a canyon ’bout twenty feet from here.”