Harold Lounsbury found to his surprise that they were not to start at once. It soon became evident that Bill had certain other matters on his mind.

“Build a fire and put on some water to heat fill up every pan you have,” he instructed Sindy. He himself began to cram their little stove with wood. Harold watched with ill-concealed anxiety.

“What’s that for?” he asked at last.

Bill straightened up and faced him. “You didn’t think I was going to take you looking like you do, do you into Virginia’s presence? The first thing on the program is a bath.”

Harold flushed: the red glow was evident even through the sooty accumulation on his face. “It seems to me you’re going a little outside your authority as Miss Tremont’s representative. I don’t know that I need to have any hillbilly tell me when I need a bath.”

“Yes?” Bill’s eyes twinkled for the first time during their talk. “Hillbilly is right in contrast to a cultured gentleman of cities. But let me correct you. You may not know it, but I do. And you need one now.” He turned once more to Sindy. “And see what you can do about this gentleman’s clothes, too; if he’s got any clean underwear or any other togs, load ’em out.”

“Anything else?” Harold asked sarcastically.

“Several things. Have you got any kind of a razor?”

“No. I don’t want one either.”

“Better look around and find one. If you don’t, I’ll be obliged to shave you with my jackknife and it will be inclined to pull. It’s sharp enough for skinning grizzlies but not for that growth of yours. And I’ll try to trim your hair up for you a little, too. When you bathe, bathe all over don’t spare your face or your hair. Water may seem strange at first, but you’ll get used to it. And I’ll go over and sit with Joe Robinson and his friend until you are ready. The surroundings are more appetizing. If you can polish yourself well in an hour, we’ll make it through to-night.”

Harold’s heart burned, but he acquiesced. Then Bill turned and left him to his ablutions.

Less than an hour later Harold came mushing up the lean-to where Bill waited. And the hour had wrought a profound and amazing change in the man’s appearance. He had conscientiously gone to work to cleanse himself, and he had succeeded. His hair, dull before, was a glossy dark-brown now; he had shaved off the matted growth about his lips, leaving only a small, neat mustache; his hair was trimmed and carefully parted. The man’s skin had also resumed its natural shade.

For the first time Bill realized that Harold was really a rather handsome man. His features were much more regular than Bill’s own. The lips were fine, just a little too fine, in fact, giving an intangible but unmistakable hint of cruelty. The only thing that had not changed was his eyes. They were as smoldering and wolfish as ever.

By Bill’s instructions he had loaded his back with blankets, his pistol was at his belt, and he carried a thirty-five rifle in the hollow of his arm.

“I’m ready,” he said gruffly.

“I’m glad to hear it.” Bill glanced at his watch. “It’s late, but by mushing fast we can make it in by dark. I told Virginia that I’d likely need an extra day at least she’ll think I’ve worked fast. She’d know it if she had seen how you looked an hour ago. I was counting on finding you somewhere along the Yuga.”

“We moved up a few weeks ago.”

“There’s one other thing, before we start. I want you to tell these understrappers of yours to take that squaw and clear out of Clearwater. Tell ’em to take her back where she belongs to Buckshot Dan. He’ll take her in, all right. I’ve been working in Miss Tremont’s interests until now now I’m working in my own. This happens to be my trapping country. If I come back in a few weeks and find them still here there’s apt to be some considerable shedding of a bad mixture of bad blood. In other words skin out while you yet can.”

The half-breeds, understanding perfectly, looked to Harold for confirmation. The latter had already learned several lessons of importance this day, and he didn’t really care to learn any more. His answer was swift.

“Go, as he says,” Harold directed.

Their dark faces grew sullen. The idea was evidently not to their favor. Then one asked a question in the Indian vernacular.

Bill was alert at once. Here was a situation that he couldn’t handle. Harold glanced once at his face, saw by his expression that he was baffled, and answered in the same language. From the tone of his voice Bill would have said that he uttered a promise.

Once more the Indian questioned, and Harold hesitated an instant, as if seeking an answer. It seemed to the other white man that his eye fell to the rifle that Bill carried. Then he spoke again, gesturing. The gesture that he made was four fingers, as if in an instinctive motion, held before the Indian’s eyes. Then he announced that he was ready to go.

The afternoon was almost done when they started out. The distant trees were already dim; phantoms were gathered in the spaces between the trunks. The two mushed swiftly through the snow.

Bill had enough memory of that glance to his rifle to prefer to walk behind, keeping a close eye on Harold. Yet he could see no reason on earth why the man should make any attempt upon his life. The trip was to Harold’s own advantage.

He had plenty of time to think in the long walk to his cabin. Only the snowy forest lay about him: the only sound was the crunch of their shoes in the snow, and there was nothing to distract him. Now that it was evident that Harold had no designs upon his life, he walked with bowed head, a dark luster in his eyes.

He had fulfilled his contract and found the missing man. Even now he was showing him the way to Virginia. He wondered if he had been a fool to have sacrificed his own happiness for an unworthy rival. The world grew dreary and dark about him.

He had tried to hide his own tragedy by a mask of brusqueness, even a grim humor when he had given his orders to Harold. But he hadn’t deceived himself. His heart had been leading within him. Now he even felt the beginnings of bitterness, but he crushed them down with all the power of his will. He mustn’t let himself grow bitter, at least, black and hating and jealous. Rather he must follow his star, believe yet in its beauty and its fidelity, and never look at it through glasses darkly. He must take what fate had given him and be content, a few wonderful weeks that could never come again. He had had his fling of happiness; the day was at an end.

It was true. As if by a grim symbolism, darkness fell over Clearwater. The form in front of him grew dim, ghostly, yet well he knew its reality. The distant trunks blurred, faded, and were obliterated; the trees, swept and hidden by the snow, were like silent ghosts that faded; the whole vista was like a scene in a strange and tragic dream.

The silence seemed to press him down like a malignant weight. The mysterious and eerie sorrow of the northern night went home to him as never before.

He knew all too well the outcome of this day’s work. There would be a few little moments of gratitude from Virginia; perhaps in the joy of the reunion she would even forget to give him this. He would try to smile at her, to wish her happiness; he would fight to make his voice sound like his own. She would take Harold to her heart the same as ever. He had not the least hope of any other consummation. Now that Harold was shaved and clean he was a handsome youth, and all the full sweep of her old love would go to him in an instant. In fact, her love had already gone to him across thousands of miles of weary wasteland and through that love she had come clear up to these terrible wilds to find him.

His speech, his bearing seemed already changed. He was remembering that he was a gentleman, one of Virginia’s own kind. He already looked the part. Perhaps he was already on the way toward true regeneration. It was better that he should be, for Virginia’s happiness. Her happiness this had been the motive and the theme of Bill’s work clear through: it was his one consolation now. In a few days the snow crust would be firm enough to trust, and hand in hand they would go down toward Bradleyburg. He would see the joy in their faces, the old luster of which he himself had dreamed in Virginia’s eyes. But it would not flow out to him. The holy miracle would not raise him from the dead. He would serve her to the last, and when at length they saw the roofs and tottering chimneys of Bradleyburg she would go out of his work and out of his life, never to return. In their native city Harold Lounsbury would take his old place. He’s have his uncle’s fortune to aid him in is struggle for success. The test of existence was not so hard down there; he might be wholly able to hold Virginia’s respect and love, and make her happy. Such was Bill’s last prayer.

They were nearing the cabin now. They saw the candlelight, like a pale ghost, in the window. Virginia was still up, reading, perhaps, before the fire. She didn’t guess what happiness Bill was bringing her across the snow.

Bill could fancy her, bright eyes intent, face a little thoughtful, perhaps, but tender as the eyes of angels. He could see her hair burnished in the candlelight, the soft, gracious beauty of her face. Her lips, too, he couldn’t forget those lips of hers. A shudder of cold passed over his frame.

He strode forward and put his hand on Harold’s arm. “Wait,” he commanded. “There’s one thing more.”

Harold paused, and the darkness was not so dense but that this face was vaguely revealed, sullen and questioning.

“There’s one thing more,” Bill repeated again. “I’ve brought you here. I’ve given you your chance for redemption. God knows if I had my choice I’d have killed you first. She’s not going to know about the squaw, unless you tell her. These matters are all for you to decide, I won’t interfere.”

He paused, and Harold waited. And his eager ears caught the faint throb of feeling in the low, almost muttered notes.

“But don’t forget I’m there,” he went on. “I work for her until she goes out of my charge and I’m her guide, her protector, the guardian of her happiness. That’s all I care about her happiness. I don’t know whether or not I did wrong to bring a squaw man to her but if you’re man enough to hold her love and make her happy, it doesn’t matter. But I give one warning.”

His voice changed. It took on a quality of infinite and immutable prophecy In the darkness and the silence, the voice might have come from some higher realm, speaking the irrevocable will of the forest gods.

“She’ll be more or less in your power at times, up here. I won’t be with you every minute. But if you take one jot of advantage of that fact either in word or deed I’ll break you and smash you and kill you in my hands!”

He waited an instant for the words to go home. Harold shivered as if with cold. And because in his mind already lay the vision of their meeting, he uttered one more sentence of instructions. He was a strong man, this son of the forest and no man dared deny the trait but he could not steel himself to see that first kiss. The sight of the girl, fluttering and enraptured in Harold’s arms, the soft loveliness of her lips on his, was more than he could bear.

“Go on in,” he said. “She’s waiting for you.”

And she was. She had waited six years, dreaming all the while of his return. Harold went in, and left his savior to the doubtful mercy of the winter forest, the darkness that had crept into his heart, and the hush that might have been the utter silence of death itself had it not been for the image of a faint, enraptured cry, the utterance of dreams come true, within the cabin door.