And they both broke into laughter--laughter that died out before a sound of rushing and of thunder, as a mass slid swiftly past them, snow and mud and sand and rubble. The wind fell away from them, and when Pierre looked up he saw that a great mass of tumbled rock and soil loomed above them. The landslide had not touched them, by some miracle, but in a moment more it might shake loose again, and all that mass of ton upon ton of stone and loam would overwhelm them. The whole mass quaked and trembled, and the very hillside shuddered beneath them. She looked up and saw the coming ruin; but her cry was for him, not herself. "Run, Pierre--you can save yourself." With that terror threatening him from above, he rose and started to run down the hill. A moan of woe followed him, and he stopped and turned back, and fought his way through the wind until he was beside her once more. She was weeping. "Pierre--I couldn't help calling out for you; but now I'm strong again, and I won't have you stay. The whole mountain is shaking and falling toward us. Go now, Pierre, and I'll never make a sound to bring you back." He said: "Hush! I've something here which will keep us both safe. Look!" He tore from the chain the little metal cross, and held it high overhead, glimmering in the pallid light. She forgot her fear in wonder. "I gambled with only one coin to lose, and I came out tonight with hundreds and hundreds of dollars because I had the cross. It is a charm against all danger and against all bad fortune. It has never failed me." Over them the piled mass slid closer. The forehead of Pierre gleamed with sweat, but a strong purpose made him talk on. At least he could take all the foreboding of death from the child, and when the end came it would be swift and wipe them both out at one stroke. She clung to him, eager to believe. "I've closed my eyes so that I can believe." "It has never failed me. It saved me when I fought two men. One of them I crippled and the other died. You see, the power of the cross is as great as that. Do you doubt it now, Mary?" "Do you believe in it so much--really--Pierre?" Each time there was a little lowering of her voice, a little pause and caress in the tone as she uttered his name, and nothing in all his life had stirred Red Pierre so deeply with happiness and sorrow. "Do you believe, Pierre?" she repeated. He looked up and saw the shuddering mass of the landslide creeping upon them inch by inch. In another moment it would loose itself with a rush and cover them. "I believe," he said. "If you should live, and I should die--" "I would throw the cross away." "No, you would keep it; and every time you touched it you would think of me, Pierre, would you not?" "When you reach out to me like that, you take my heart between your hands." "And I feel grown up and sad and happy both together. After we've been together on such a night, how can we ever be apart again?"