"Don't be a little fool, Snowbird," he urged. "My clothes are wet already from the melted snow. It's too long a way--it will be too hard a fight, and children--I'm old and tired out. I don't want to make the try--hunger and cold; and even if you'd stay here and grub wood, Snowbird, they'd find us both dead when they came back in a week. We can't live without food, and work and keep warm--and there isn't a living creature in the hills." "Except the wolves," Dan reminded him. "Except the wolves," Lennox echoed. "Remember, we're unarmed--and they'd find it out. You're young, Snowbird, and so is Dan--and you two will be happy. I know how things are, you two--more than you know yourselves--and in the end you'll be happy. But me--I'm too tired to make the try. I don't care about it enough. I'm going to wave you good-by, and smile, and lie here and let the cold come down. You feel warm in a little while--" But she stopped his lips with her hand. And he bent and kissed it. "If anybody's going to stay with you," Dan told them in a clear, firm voice, "it's going to be me. But aren't any of the cabins occupied?" "You know they aren't," Lennox answered. "Not even the houses beyond the North Fork, even if we could get across. The nearest help is over seventy miles." "And Snowbird, think! Haven't any supplies been left in the ranger station?" "Not one thing," the girl told him. "You know Cranston and his crowd robbed the place last winter. And the telephone lines were disconnected when the rangers left." "Then the only way is for me to stay here. You can take the pistol, and you'll have a fair chance of getting through. I'll grub wood for our camp meanwhile, and you can bring help." "And if the wolves come, or if help didn't come in time," Lennox whispered, passion-drawn for the first time, "who would pay what we owe to Cranston?" "But her life counts--first of all." "I know it does--but mine doesn't count at all. Believe me, you two. I'm speaking from my own desires when I say I don't want to make the fight. Snowbird would never make it through alone. There are the wolves, and maybe Cranston too--the worst wolf of all. A woman can't mush across those ridges four days without food, without some one who loves her and forces her on! Neither can she stay here with me and try to make green branches burn in a fire. She's got three little pistol balls--and we'd all die for a whim. Oh, please, please--" But Dan leaped for his hand with glowing eyes. "Listen, man!" he cried. "I know another way yet. I know more than one way; but one, if we've got the strength, is almost sure. There is an ax in the kitchen, and the blade will still be good." "Likely dulled with the fire--" "I'll cut a limb with my jackknife for the handle. There will be nails in the ashes, plenty of them. We'll make a rude sledge, and we'll get you out too."