Part 27

As the flame sank low the cold bit, and he built up the half-burned logs so that they blazed again. He worked as silently as he could; but the girl again spoke, with sweet authority: "Haven't you gone to bed yet?"

"Oh yes, I've been asleep. I only got up to rebuild the fire."

"I'm afraid you're cold."

"I'm as comfortable as I deserve; it's all schooling, you know. Please go to sleep again." His teeth were chattering as he spoke, but he added: "I'm all right."

After a silence she said: "You must not get chilled. Bring your bed into the tent. There is room for you."

"Oh no, that isn't necessary. I'm standing it very well."

"You'll be sick!" she urged, in a voice of alarm. "Please drag your bed inside the door. What would I do if you should have pneumonia to-morrow? You must not take any risk of a fever."

The thought of a sheltered spot, of something to break the remorseless wind, overcame his scruples, and he drew his bed inside the tent and rearranged it there.

"You're half frozen," she said. "Your teeth are chattering."

"It isn't so much the cold," he stammered. "I'm tired."

"You poor boy!" she exclaimed, and rose in her bed. "I'll get up and heat some water for you."

"I'll be all right, in a few moments," he said. "Please go to sleep. I shall be snug as a bug in a moment."

She watched his shadowy motions from her bed, and when at last he had nestled into his blankets, she said: "If you don't lose your chill I'll heat a rock and put at your feet."

He was ready to cry out in shame of his weakness; but he lay silent till he could command his voice, then he said: "That would drive me from the country in disgrace. Think of what the fellows down below will say when they know of my cold feet."

"They won't hear of it; and, besides, it is better to carry a hot-water bag than to be laid up with a fever."

Her anxiety lessened as his voice resumed its pleasant tenor flow. "Dear girl," he said, "no one could have been sweeter--more like a guardian angel to me. Don't place me under any greater obligation. Go to sleep. I am better--much better now."

She did not speak for a few moments, then in a voice that conveyed to him a knowledge that his words of endearment had deeply moved her, she softly said: "Good night."

He heard her sigh drowsily thereafter once or twice, and then she slept, and her slumber redoubled in him his sense of guardianship, of responsibility. Lying there in the shelter of her tent, the whole situation seemed simple, innocent, and poetic; but looked at from the standpoint of Clifford Belden it held an accusation.

"It cannot be helped," he said. "The only thing we can do is to conceal the fact that we spent the night beneath this tent alone."

In the belief that the way would clear with the dawn, he, too, fell asleep, while the fire sputtered and smudged in the fitful mountain wind.

The second dawn came slowly, as though crippled by the storm and walled back by the clouds. Gradually, austerely, the bleak, white peaks began to define themselves above the firs. The camp-birds called cheerily from the wet branches which overhung the smoldering embers of the fire, and so at last day was abroad in the sky.

With a dull ache in his bones, Wayland crept out to the fire and set to work fanning the coals with his hat, as he had seen the Supervisor do. He worked desperately till one of the embers began to angrily sparkle and to smoke. Then slipping away out of earshot he broke an armful of dry fir branches to heap above the wet, charred logs. Soon these twigs broke into flame, and Berrie, awakened by the crackle of the pine branches, called out: "Is it daylight?"

"Yes, but it's a very dark daylight. Don't leave your warm bed for the dampness and cold out here; stay where you are; I'll get breakfast."

"How are you this morning? Did you sleep?"

"Fine!"

"I'm afraid you had a bad night," she insisted, in a tone which indicated her knowledge of his suffering.

"Camp life has its disadvantages," he admitted, as he put the coffee-pot on the fire. "But I'm feeling better now. I never fried a bird in my life, but I'm going to try it this morning. I have some water heating for your bath." He put the soap, towel, and basin of hot water just inside the tent flap. "Here it is. I'm going to bathe in the lake. I must show my hardihood."

He heard her protesting as he went off down the bank, but his heart was resolute. "I'm not dead yet," he said, grimly. "An invalid who can spend two such nights as these, and still face a cold wind, has some vitality in his bones after all."