His free hand gripped the butt of his pistol as he led the way straight ahead.  The sudden gloom helped to hide in his face the horror he felt of what that “rescue” would mean to Mary Standish; and then a cold and deadly definiteness possessed him, and every nerve in his body gathered itself in readiness for whatever might happen.

If Graham’s men had seen them, and were getting between them and retreat, the neck of the trap lay ahead—­and in this direction Alan walked so swiftly that the girl was almost running at his side.  He could not hear her footsteps, so lightly they fell! her fingers were twined about his own, and he could feel the silken caress of her loose hair.  For half a mile he kept on, watching for a moving shadow, listening for a sound.  Then he stopped.  He drew Mary into his arms and held her there, so that her head lay against his breast.  She was panting, and he could feel and hear her thumping heart.  He found her parted lips and kissed them.

“You are not afraid?” he asked again.

Her head made a fierce little negative movement against his breast.  “No!”

He laughed softly at the beautiful courage with which she lied.  “Even if they saw us, and are Graham’s men, we have given them the slip,” he comforted her.  “Now we will circle eastward back to the range.  I am sorry I hurried you so.  We will go more slowly.”

“We must travel faster,” she insisted.  “I want to run.”

Her fingers sought his hand and clung to it again as they set out.  At intervals they stopped, staring about them into nothingness, and listening.  Twice Alan thought he heard sounds which did not belong to the night.  The second time the little fingers tightened about his own, but his companion said no word, only her breath seemed to catch in her throat for an instant.

At the end of another half-hour it was growing lighter, yet the breath of storm seemed nearer.  The cool promise of it touched their cheeks, and about them were gathering whispers and eddies of a thirsty earth rousing to the sudden change.  It was lighter because the wall of cloud seemed to be distributing itself over the whole heaven, thinning out where its solid opaqueness had lain against the sun.  Alan could see the girl’s face and the cloud of her hair.  Hollows and ridges of the tundra were taking more distinct shape when they came into a dip, and Alan recognized a thicket of willows behind which a pool was hidden.

The thicket was only half a mile from home.  A spring was near the edge of the willows, and to this he led the girl, made her a place to kneel, and showed her how to cup the cool water in the palms of her hands.  While she inclined her head to drink, he held back her hair and rested with his lips pressed to it.  He heard the trickle of water running between her fingers, her little laugh of half-pleasure, half-fear, which in another instant broke into a startled scream as he half gained his feet to meet a crashing body that catapulted at him from the concealment of the willows.