If something
had not happened I'm sure she would have come to-day, notwithstanding
I scolded her yesterday, and told her I'd rather cook myself than let
her run such risks. How will we go, Mr. Brown; horses or snowshoes?"
"Shoes," said the foreman decidedly. "That snow'll be above the
middle of the biggest horse in the outfit."
So they set forth on their tramp up the slopes, peering right and
left as they went for any indication of the absent woman. Wingate's
old grief was knocking at his heart once more. A woman lost in the
appalling vastness of this great Western land was entering into
his life again. It took them a full hour to go that mile, although
both were experts on the shoes, but as they reached the rim of the
canyon they were rewarded by seeing a thin blue streak of smoke
curling up from her lodge "chimney." Wingate sat down in the snows
weakly. The relief had unmanned him.
"I didn't know how much I cared," he said, "until I knew she was
safe. She looks at me as my mother used to; her eyes are like
mother's, and I loved my mother."
It was a simple, direct speech, but Brown caught its pathos.
"She's a good woman," he blurted out, as they trudged along towards
the shack.
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