step.

"Good God!" he said. "Are you alone?"

She bowed her head, and he heard her voice in a half sob.

"Yes-- alone."

He passed quickly around to her side. "I am Sergeant MacVeigh, of the
Royal Mounted," he said, gently. "Tell me, where are you going, and
how does it happen that you are out here in the Barren-- alone."

Her hood had fallen upon her shoulder, and she lifted her face full to
MacVeigh. The stars shone in her eyes. They were wonderful eyes, and
now they were filled with pain. And it was a wonderful face to
MacVeigh, who had not seen a white woman's face for nearly a year. She
was young, so young that in the pale glow of the night she looked
almost like a girl, and in her eyes and mouth and the upturn of her
chin there was something so like that other face of which he had
dreamed that he reached out and took her two hesitating hands in his
own, and asked again:

"Where are you going, and why are you out here-- alone?"

"I am going-- down there," she said, turning her head toward the
timber-line. "I am going with him-- my husband--"

Her voice choked her, and, drawing her hands suddenly from him, she
went to the sledge and stood facing him. For a moment there was a glow
of defiance in her eyes, as though she feared him and was ready to