black bear-hide near the stove. He knelt beside it. He had no eyes
for anything else. Pete, hobbling to him, gazed curiously down, and
Bella knelt opposite and drew away Hugh's mackinaw coat, with which
he had wrapped his trove. It was not a woman whom they looked down
upon, but a girl, and very young--perhaps not yet seventeen--a girl
with cropped dark curly hair and a face so wan and blue and at the
same time so scorched by the snow-glare that its exquisiteness of
feature was all the more marked. Hugh's handkerchief was tied loosely
across her eyes.

"I heard her crying in the snow," he said with ineffable tenderness;
"crying like a little bleating lamb with cold and pain and hunger
and fright--the most pitiful thing in God's cruel trap of life. She's
blind--snow-blind."

Pete gave a sharp exclamation, and Bella gently removed the
handkerchief. The small figure moaned and moved its head. The lids
of her eyes were swollen and discolored.

"Snow-blind," echoed Bella.

"A bad case," said Hugh. "Get her some soup, Bella, and--perhaps,
hot water--I don't know." He looked up helplessly.

Bella went to the kitchen. She had regained her old look of dumbness.
Beside the figure on the floor Pete touched one of the girl's small
clenched hands. It was like ice. At the touch she moaned, and Hugh
ordered sharply: "Let her alone." So the boy dragged himself up again
and stood by the mantel, watching Hugh with puzzled and wondering
eyes.