The horse plodded a few more steps. "Brave! To think that it is _you_ that has to encourage _me_--instead of my trying to keep up your spirits. I will try to be brave, Bruce. And if we don't live through the night, my last remembrance will be of your bravery--how you, injured and weak from loss of blood, still remembered to give a cheery word to me." "I'm not badly injured," he told her gently. "And there are certain things that have come clear to me lately. One of them is that except for you--throwing your own precious body between--I wouldn't be here at all." The feeling that they had lost the trail grew upon them. More than once the stirrup struck the bark of a tree and often the thickets gave way beneath them. Once they halted to adjust the blankets on the saddle, and they listened for any sounds that might indicate that Simon was overtaking them. But all they heard was the soft rustle of the leaves under the wind-blown snow. "Linda," he asked suddenly. "Does it seem to you to be awfully cold?" She waited a long time before she spoke. This was not the hour to make quick answers. On any decision might rest their success or failure. "I believe I can stand it--awhile longer," she answered at last. "But I don't think we'd better try to. It's getting cold. Every hour it's colder, and I seem to be getting weaker. It isn't a real wound, Linda--but it seems to have knocked some of my vitality out of me, and I'm dreadfully in need of rest. I think we'd better try to make a camp." "And go on by morning light?" "Yes." "But Simon might overtake us then." "We must stay out of sight of the trail. But somehow--I can't help but hope he won't try to follow us on such a night as this." He drew up the horse, and they sat in the beat of the snow. "Don't make any mistake about that, Bruce," she told him. "Remember, that unless he overtakes us before we come into the protection of the courts, his whole fight is lost. It doesn't alone mean loss of the estate--for which he would risk his life just as he has a dozen times. It means defeat--a thing that would come hard to Simon. Besides, he's got a fire within him that will keep him warm." "You mean--hatred?" "Hatred. Nothing else." "But in spite of it we must make camp. We'll get off the trail--if we're still on it--and try to slip through to-morrow. You see what's going to happen if we keep on going this way?" "I know that I feel a queer dread--and hopelessness--" "And that dread and hopelessness are just as much danger signals as the sound of Simon's horse behind us. It means that the cold and the snow and the fear are getting the better of us. Linda, it's a race with death. Don't misunderstand me or disbelieve me. It isn't Simon alone now. It's the cold and the snow and the fear. The thing to do is to make camp, keep as warm as we can in our blankets, and push on in the morning. It's two full days' ride, going fast, the best we can go--and God knows what will happen before the end."