“While the flower blooms in the meadow,
        And fishes swim the sea,
      Heart of my heart, soul of my soul,
        I’ll love and live for thee”;

how then shyness fell on her and she moved ever so little to her own side of the fire; how he, sensitive to her every emotion, rose at once to build the fire, telling her for the first time then of his wonderful discovery, which he had clean forgot; how together on tiptoe they examined, with heads in close proximity and voices lowered to a whisper, the black seam that ran down a side of the cave; how they discussed the possible value of it and what it might mean to Kalman; and then how they fell silent again till Kalman commanded her to bed, to which she agreed only upon condition that he should rouse Mr. Penny when his watch should be over; how she woke in broad daylight to find him with breakfast ready, the blizzard nearly done, and the sun breaking through upon a wonderful world, white and fairylike; how they vainly strove to simulate an ease of manner, to forget some of the things that happened the night before, and that neither could ever forget till the heart should cease to beat.

All this might be told, had one the art.  But no art or skill of man could tell how, as they talked, there flew from eye to eye, hers brown and his blue-grey, those swift, fluttering signals of the heart; how he watched to see on her cheek the red flush glow and pale again, not sure whether it was from the fire upon the cave floor or from the fire that burns eternal in the heart of man and maid; how, as he talked and sang, she feared and loved to see the bold leap of passion in his eyes; and how she speedily learned what words or looks of hers could call up that flash; how, as she slept, he piled high the fire, not that she might be warm, but that the light might fall upon her face and he might drink and drink till his heart could hold no more, of her sweet loveliness; how, when first waking, her eyes fell on him moving softly about the cave, and then closed again till she could dream again her dream and drink in slow sips its rapture; how he feared to meet her waking glance, lest it should rebuke his madness of the night; how, as her eyes noted the haggard look of sleepless watching and of pain, her heart flowed over as with a mother’s pity for her child, and how she longed to comfort him but dared not; how he thought of the coming days and feared to think of them, because in them she would have no place or part; how she looked into the future and wondered what like would be a life in this new and wonderful land—­all this, no matter what his skill or art, no man could tell.

It was still morning when Jack French and Brown rode up the Night Hawk ravine, driving two saddled ponies before them.  Their common anxiety had furnished the occasion for the healing of the breach that for a year and more had held these friends apart.

With voluble enthusiasm Mr. Penny welcomed them, plunging into a graphic account of their struggle with the storm till happily they came upon the dogs, who led them to Kalman and his camp.  But French, brushing him aside, strode past to where, trembling and speechless, Marjorie stood, and then, taking her in his arms, he whispered many times in her ears, “Thank God, little girl, you are safe.”