and Vaughan took a long, relieved breath.

"We'll have the wind on our backs now," he remarked. "I guess we may as well
keep on and see where this fence goes to."

His tone was too elaborately cheerful to be very cheering.He was wondering
if the girl was dressed warmly. It had been so warm and sunny before the
blizzard struck, but now the wind searched out the thin places in one's
clothing and ran lead in one's bones, where should be simply marrow. He
fancied that her voice, when she spoke, gave evidence of actual
suffering--and the heart of Rowdy Vaughan was ever soft toward a woman.

"If you're cold," he began, "I'll open up my bed and get out a blanket." He
held Dixie in tentatively.

"Oh, don't trouble to do that," she protested; but there was that in her
voice which hardened his impulse into fixed resolution.

"I ought to have thought of it before," he lamented, and swung down stiffly
into the snow.

Her eyes followed his movement with a very evident interest while he
unbuckled the pack Chub had carried since sunrise and drew out a blanket.

"Stand in your stirrup," he commanded briskly "and I'll wrap you up. It's a
Navajo, and the wind will have a time trying to find a thin spot."

"You're thoughtful." She snuggled into it thankfully. "I was cold."

Vaughan tucked it around her with more care than haste. He was pretty