The Candidate Part 48

"We can easily find it again; it must be there."

He pointed in the direction in which he thought Grafton lay, and continued:

"It will merely make our walk back to town the longer, and that is what I like."

But she, who had lived her life on the plains and in the mountains, was not so sure. She knew that they had walked far, because not even the smoke of Grafton could be seen now. Yet he was with her.

"Suppose we try that direction," she a.s.sented.

"And if it isn't right, we will try another; our train stays at Grafton all day."

They walked on, saying to each other the little things that mean nothing to others, but which lovers love, and Grafton yet lay hidden in its place between the swells. The skies, changing now from a bright to a steely gray, were unmarred by a single wisp of smoke.

Harley felt at last an uneasiness which increased gradually as they went on; the country was provokingly monotonous, one swell was like another, and the dips between were just the same; there were patches of brown gra.s.s eaten down by cattle, but mostly the soil was bare; it seemed to Harley, at that moment, a weary and ugly land, but it set off the star in the midst of it--Sylvia--like a diamond in the dust. He looked up; the mountains, before blue and distinct in the clear sky, were now gray and vague.

"We must have walked fast and far," he said. "Look how that range of mountains has moved away."

Sylvia looked, and her face whitened again.

"It is not distance, John," she said. "It is a mist. See, the clouds are coming!"

The mountains moved farther away and became shadowy; the steel-gray of the skies darkened; up from the southwest rolled ugly brown clouds; there was a rush of chill air.

Harley understood all, and a s.h.i.+ver pa.s.sed over him. But his fear was for her, not for himself.

"It is going to snow," said Sylvia.

"And we are lost in this desert; it was I, too, who brought you here,"

said Harley.

She looked up into his eyes, and her face was not pale.

"We are together," she said.

He bent his head and kissed her, for the second time that day.

"You are the bravest woman in the world, Sylvia," he said. "Now we live or die together, and we are not afraid."

"We are not afraid."

He put his arm around her waist, and she did not resist. Both expected to die, and they felt that they belonged to each other for eternity. A strange, spiritual exaltation possessed them; the world about them was unreal now--they two were all that was real.

"The snow comes, dearest," she said.

Up from the southwest the ugly brown clouds were still rolling, and the sky above them still darkened; the mountains were gone in the mist, the chill wind strengthened and shrieked over the plain. Harley kept his arm around Sylvia's waist, and drew her more closely to him that he might shelter her.

"Let the snow come," he said.

Great white flakes, borne upon the edge of the wind, fell damp upon their faces, and suddenly the air was filled with them as they came in blinding clouds; the wind ceased to shriek and died, and the brown clouds, now fused into one ma.s.s that covered all the heavens, opened and let down the snow in unbroken volume.

"We must go on, sweetheart," said Harley, rousing himself. "To stand here is death. We may find some kind of shelter if we go; there is none in this place."

They walked on, their heads bent a little, as the snow was coming straight down. They could not see twenty yards before them through the white cloud, and Harley was scarcely conscious whether they climbed the swells or descended into the dips between.

Sylvia covered her head with a small shawl that she wore. Harley wanted to take off his coat and wrap it around her, but she would not let him.

"I am not cold," she said; "I think it is the walking that keeps me warm."

It was partly that, but it was more the presence of Harley and the state of spiritual exaltation in which they remained. Both took it as a matter of course that they were to die in a few hours, but they had no fear of this death, and it was not even worth while to talk or think of it.

Harley had spoken merely through habit and instinct of moving on lest they die, and it was these same unconscious motives that made them struggle, although they took no interest in their own efforts.

"We may come to a clump of trees," said Sylvia, "or to a hollow in a rocky hill-side; that happens sometimes in this part of the Dakotas."

"Maybe we shall," said Harley, but he thought no more about it.

The wind rose again and swept over the plain with a shriek and a howl.

Columns and cones of snow were whirled past them and over them; wind and snow together made it harder for them to keep their feet.

"If we don't find that hollow soon, we won't need it," said Harley.

"No," she said.

She was very close to him, and when she looked up he could see a smile on her face.

"Death is not terrible," she said.

"Not with you."

The shriek of the wind had now become a moan like the moan of a desolate world. They came to two or three dwarfed trees growing close to one an other, but they gave no shelter, and, Harley being in dread lest branches should be blown off and against Sylvia, they went on.

"What will they think has become of us?" said Sylvia.

But the only thought it brought into Harley's mind at that moment was the interruption it would cause to the campaign. He was sorry for Jimmy Grayson. He felt that the girl's step was growing less steady. Obviously she was becoming weaker.

"Lean against me," he said; "I am strong enough for both."

She said nothing, but he felt her shoulder press more heavily against him. He drew his hat-brim down that he might keep the whirling flakes from his eyes, and staggered blindly forward. His knee struck against something hard, and, putting out his hand, he touched stone and earth.

"Here is a hill," he said, without joy, and he uncovered his eyes again to seek shelter. He did not find it there, but farther on, in another hill, was a rocky alcove that in earlier days had been the den of some wild animal. It was carpeted with old dead leaves, and it faced the east, while the wind and the snow came from the southwest. It was only a hollow, running back three or four feet, and one must crouch to enter; but except near the door there was no snow in it, and the storm drove by in vain.

"Here is our house, Sylvia," exclaimed Harley, with a strong ring in his voice, and he drew her in. He raked up the old, musty, dead leaves in a heap, and made her sit upon them. He was the man now, the masculine animal who ruled, and she obeyed without protest.

"Hark to the storm! How the wind whistles!" he said.

Pyramids and columns of snow whirled by the mouth of their little hollow, and they crouched close together. Out upon the plain the shriek of the wind was weird and unearthly. Now and then some blast, fiercer and more tortuous than the rest, drove a fringe of snow so far into the hollow that it fell a wet skim across their faces.

Sylvia did not move or speak for a long time, and when Harley looked out again the snow was thinner but the wind was still high, and it was growing much colder. The blast lashed his face with a whip of ice.

He turned back in alarm, and took Sylvia's hand in his. It was cold, and it seemed to him that the blood in it had ceased to run.