Roofless houses met them, stacks of crumpled snow, where the beams had cracked beneath the weight of high piled drifts; staring, glassless windows and rooms filled with white; stoves that no longer fought the clasp of winter but huddled instead amid piles of snow; that was all. Crestline had fled; there was no life, no sound, only the angry, wailing cry of the wind through half-frozen roof spouts, the slap of clattering boards, loosened by the storm. Gloomily Houston surveyed the desolate picture, at last to turn to the girl. "I must go on. I gave my promise." She nodded. "It means Tollifer now. The descent is more dangerous." "Do you know it?" "Not as well as the other. If I only had something to guide me." And as if in answer, the storm lifted for a moment. Gradually the wind stilled, in one of those stretches of calm which seem to be only the breeding spots of more terror, more bitterness. But they gave no heed to that, nor to the red ball of the sun, faintly visible through the clouds. Far below, miles in reality, straight jets of steam rose high above black, curling smoke; faintly, distantly, whistles sounded. The snowplows! He gripped her arm with the sight of it, nor did she resist. Thrilled, enthralled, they watched it: the whirling smoke, the shooting steam, the white spray which indicated the grinding, churning progress of the plows, propelled by the heavy engines behind. Words came from the swollen lips of Houston, but the voice was hoarse, strained, unnatural: "They've started the fight! They've--" "It's on the second grade, up from Tollifer. It's fairly easy there, you know, for ten or twelve miles. They're making that without difficulty--their work won't come until they strike the snowsheds at Crystal Lake. Oh--" and there was in the voice all the yearning, the anxiety that a pent-up soul could know--"I wish I were a man now! I wish I were a man--to help!" "I hope--" and Houston said it without thought of bravado--"that I may have the strength for both of us. I'm a man--after a sort. I'm going to work with them." "But--" He knew what she meant and shook his head. "No--she does not need me. My presence would mean nothing to her. I can't tell you why. My place--is down there." For an instant Medaine Robinette looked at him with frankly questioning eyes, eyes which told that a thought was beginning to form somewhere back in her brain, a question arising as to his guilt in at least one of the things which circumstances had arrayed against him. Some way Barry felt that she knew that a man willing to encounter the dangers of a snowy range would hurry again to the side of the woman for whom he had dared them, unless-- But suddenly she was speaking, as though to divert her thoughts.