His matter-of-fact acceptance of the situation dissipated measurably her sense of alarm at the shocked proprieties. If he were not disconcerted at the intimacy into which the blizzard had plunged them, why should she be? With the good healthy appetite of youth she ate eggs, bacon, corn pone, and two flapjacks. “When can we go?” she asked as he poured coffee into the tin cup before her. “Soon as we’ve eaten. Some job to buck the drifts to town but we’ll make it.” “And him?” A little lift of her head showed that Vicky’s elliptical question referred to Dutch. “I’ll notify his friends to come and look after him.” Hugh broke trail and Vicky followed in his steps. They travelled slowly, for in places the drifts were high. Usually the girl’s clear complexion showed little colour, but now she glowed from exercise. Once when he turned to lend her a hand through a bank of snow she shook her head gaily. “No, I’m doing fine. Isn’t it a _splendiferous_ day?” It was. The sun had come out in all its glory and was driving the clouds in ragged billows toward the horizon. The snow sparkled. It was crisp and sharp beneath their feet. The air, washed clean by the tempest, filled the lungs as with wine. Not on creation’s dawn had the world looked purer or more unsullied. Youth calls to youth. Vicky looked at Hugh with a new interest. She had always admired his clean strength, the wholesome directness of his character. To-day her eyes saw him differently. He belonged to her generation, not that of Mollie and Scot. For the first time his personality touched her own life. They could not be the same hereafter. They would have to know each other better—or not at all. In her childhood days, when fairy tales were still possible, she had dreamed of a prince in shining silver armour, handsome as Apollo Belvedere, valiant as Lancelot, a pure and ardent young Galahad. Now, as she followed the trail breaker through the white banks, an involuntary smile touched her lips. She was wondering, in the shy daring fashion of a girl’s exploring mind, what Hugh McClintock was really like behind the mask of his physical clothing. Certainly nobody could be less like the shining knight of her dreams than he. For Hugh walked the straight plain road of life without any heroic gestures. Ralph Dodson made a far more romantic figure than Hugh. Even Scot, with his native touch of the grand manner, had more glamour for her than the younger brother. Good old Hugh, faithful and true. She could not think of anybody she liked better. CHAPTER XXIV OLD DOG TRAY BARKS Jim Budd had picked up a new song. Much to the relief of his sore-tried wife, he occasionally monotoned it in place of the Grimes catalogue of virtues and clothing. Vicky could hear him in the kitchen singing it now.