Flinging himself from the saddle Paul was at her side, and holding her hands in his stood silent, fighting to hold himself steady. “You are going away, Paul!” Again came the pitiful cry. “Oh, Peggy! dear Peggy! I must go, I must go. Uncle Colonel, take her away, take her away. Good-bye, Peggy.” Her father touched her arm. “Come, Peggy,” he said quietly. “Paul must go.” “Daddy! Daddy!” she cried. “He’ll never come back!” “Peggy, listen to me,” said the boy, once more speaking in a man’s voice. “I shall come back to you. Remember what I say. And, Uncle Colonel, you remember too, I am coming back. And, Peggy, I’ll never, never forget.” He turned once more to mount. “Paul,” the child’s voice was sharp with grief, “you didn’t—say—good-bye.” The boy stood hesitating, then came to the Colonel. His man’s pose fell from him. “Uncle Colonel,” he said, his voice quivering pitifully, “good-bye.” He put out his arms, the Colonel drew him to his breast and kissed him on the cheek twice. “Good-bye, my boy. The good God have you in His care.” “Good-bye, Peggy,” said Paul, and putting his arms round her kissed her on the lips. “Good-bye! dear, dear Paul,” whispered Peggy, clinging to him. “I won’t ever forget.” In her father’s arms she lay listening while the hoof beats drummed farewell far down the trail and faded into silence. CHAPTER XV A white plain swept by furious winds and fit for the foot of God, white with a dazzling whiteness except where the red sun half down the western slope touched the wind-ruffled snowdrifts with a burnish of gold, gold deepening to purple in the hollows: a pitiless plain, glaring white up to a pitiless sky glaring blue and a pitiless sun glaring red, blinding the eyes, and swept by a wind, a pitiless wind that cut through fur coverings clean to the bone and reached with icy edge to the very heart. Across this pitiless, glaring, wind-swept, sun-burnished plain now a little party made its painful way; a youth verging to full manhood; a boy in his early teens; a girl some years his junior, a mere child indeed; fur-clad all of them, leading and driving three limping dogs attached to a toboggan. Upon the toboggan lay a woman wrapped close in furs. Where the drifts obscured the trail the youth broke the way for the team of limping dogs which the boy following lashed into movement lest they should drop in their tracks. Led by a dog trace behind the toboggan, the little girl ran lightly and easily through the broken snow or over the hardened crust, the freshest of the party. Wrapped to the eyes in furs they could defy the knife-edged wind just so long as they kept in motion. Halt they dared not, for death, hard and close upon their tracks, haunted their trail.