Snow-Blind

her timidity or to ask for help. She crept and climbed up and down, saving herself with groping hand, letting one foot test the distances befo

e pathos of her progress-a little child, she seemed, against the mountain to

't you?" he asked with a

to know that he had made her cry. She kept her f

ully fast?" she was for

accursed mountain. I want to get down

his arm-"you are on

rha

n you found me the first time. Pete will come out and hunt for me. He ha

o step down into it, he pivoted back, caught her up bodily in his arms, and, laughing, ran with her

ll, too." She clung to him and begged him to stop. She was frightened by their rash, plunging progress, by

wn the hillside! Just in time he caught Sylvie, threw her to one side and fell prone, helpless, in the path of the slide. He cried out, flinging up his arm, and, as though his cry had been of magic, th

d Sylvie. "What was

ept up

breathing heavily. "I

t? You must be hurt

badly." He had in fac

ng. You didn't think of your own life. And

arned. And joy, like a warm flood, crept up again to his heart. He sat on the hillside and held hi

and me fix it. It may be badly hurt. Y

te s

p you down. You can t

strained arm won't hurt my walking apparatus. We had a lover's qua

your own. Are you always doing insane, generous, dan

ylvie?" He bent his head and kissed her again, but he had learne

come out,"

ing lifted inch by inch, the way a boy lifts his cap to see the butterfly he's caught. All's gold behind it, Syl

uld only

his smile, usually so frank and sweet, had now a sardonic twist. As they came

hat was a narrow esc

en a pistol-shot for th

lf down before the rock and stopped it. He's hurt his poor arm. The great stone was right on top of us, and he threw

gh to smash you

ously; he opened his lips and closed them again. It was easy to understand the travail of his mind,

suddenly across a fallen tree that separa

half tauntingly, "and at the best rate she can go, it will be

y did his moccasined feet press the pine-needled earth, so exquisitely did his young strength save her from any jar. He whistled softly through his teeth as he ran in long, swift

on forever," she said with a si

teeth, hardly pausing in his whis

and suddenly down, and she knew th

e are you?"

ill in utter silence, like