and of the woman he had loved.

He made one more feeble effort to resist. Then, realising even while he
struggled that this soft weight about his heart was sweeter than
anything life could ever bring, he let his muscles relax, and sank back
into the soft oblivion of the covering snow. Her wintry kisses bore him
into sleep.




VII


They say that men who know the sleep of exhaustion in the snow find no
awakening on the hither side of death.... The hours passed and the moon
sank down below the white world's rim. Then, suddenly, there came a
little crash upon his breast and neck, and Hibbert--woke.

He slowly turned bewildered, heavy eyes upon the desolate mountains,
stared dizzily about him, tried to rise. At first his muscles would not
act; a numbing, aching pain possessed him. He uttered a long, thin cry
for help, and heard its faintness swallowed by the wind. And then he
understood vaguely why he was only warm--not dead. For this very wind
that took his cry had built up a sheltering mound of driven snow against
his body while he slept. Like a curving wave it ran beside him. It was
the breaking of its over-toppling edge that caused the crash, and the
coldness of the mass against his neck that woke him.

Dawn kissed the eastern sky; pale gleams of gold shot every peak with