Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 18, 1928 — page 126: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

924 }. of the solitude and might of this land op- pressed her a little. : She drew close to him and her mittened hand caught his arm and clung there. Sud- denly he reached behind her, brought his big arm close about her body, and lifted her against him. “Feel the cold too much, Barb?” he asked tenderly. ‘“‘ Keep up close to me and don’t let that wind hit you—great coun- try, ain’t it? Gee! And what a little win- ner you are, Barb! I never knew girls could travel like we have to-day!” “T didn’t mind. I loved it, Tad,” she said softly. ‘It is a marvelous country, isn’t it? But a terrible one, too! Imagine being here alone!” She shuddered a little at the thought. He laughed away her fears in his hearty way, and she snuggled inside his arm, watched as the smoke clouds of his pipe seemed to be devoured by the frost-laden air and whipped away into oblivion the in- stant they ventured from the folds of his parka. In the near distance a wolf howled, its lugubrious wail stalking through the trees with a malicious note, its disconsolate hunger and yearning like the voice of a strange and imprisoned and_ persecuted spirit of the vastness. “ Wolf!” Tad muttered. ‘“ Needn’t be scared of ’em, Barb. Great cowards they are, and we’ve plenty of ammunition should they bother us at night with their howls.” “J could sleep to-night,’ Barbara said dreamily, “if my couch were one of sword- points—I’m that tired!” The man laughed slowly, and his arm about her tightened in comforting assur- ance. “ But,” the girl said a bit archly, “I want you to promise not to leave me alone for any reason—and to listen real hard in case I call!” Tad Raynor promised that he would, then went to inspect her blankets, and see that all was as it should be in her little tent. The girl was standing at the flap of the tent when he came out. “ Everything fine!” he laughed. 3 The men that got these natives for us sure knew — ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. the ones we needed, Barb. Sleep tight— never fear, I'll keep a watch for you! Wake up with the first crack of dawn, and we'll leave the creek and head almost due east to-morrow. Think you can stand an- other day of it without a rest?” “T think so, Tad,” the girl said softly, her hand catching his arm again. She stood very close to him and looked upward. “You look so huge in that fur,” she laughed gently, ‘so very huge, and some- how vicious—like a bear!” His hand found her shoulder, and he laughed and patted her. “Tm not a bit, Barb!” he assured her. “Sleep tight and call if you want any- thing!” The girl nodded and he felt a pressure of her hand on his arm. Then she slipped into the tent, and his last sight of her was as she glanced back at him. Her lovely eyes had taken on an infinite tenderness; a new light that thrilled him immeasurably. He sat beside the fire and smoked an- other pipe boad before turning into his own blankets, but even that wait did not remove from his mind the tender light of Barb’s eyes nor yet did it convince him that the difference in the girl was realiza- tion on her part that now she was totally dependent upon him! He wondered if there was something else, too—something such as stirred deep .with- in himself, CHAPTER XXII. FROST. HE next morning dawned clear and cold, the great pines snapping under the ministrations of frost and air pregnant with an icy breath that pierced through the thickest and warmest of cloth- ing. Everywhere was stillness, inanition, silence. The whole great world about the travelers, was the antithesis of motion, though everything had been gripped by It was as frost and was held rigid and frozen in the_ clutch of winter. The dogs of the teams roused from their 7 huddle in the snow, their coats spangled (elo) miiiG! .OOKS (XO)