If Peggy expected her patient to resent this question she must have been surprised, for Alice merely smiled as if at the impertinence of a child. Mrs. Adams replied: "I can tell you that she is--and a very fortunate girl her friends think her." He turned to her with unmoved face. "You mean he's got money, I reckon." "Money and brains and good looks and a fine position." "That's about the whole works, ain't it--leastwise he will have it all when he gets you. A man like that doesn't deserve what he's got. He's a chump. Do you suppose I'd go off and leave you alone in a hole like this with a smashed leg? I'd never bring you into such a country, in the first place. And I certainly wouldn't leave you just to study a shack of ice on the mountainside." "I urged him to go, and, besides, Peggy is mistaken; we're not engaged." "But he left you! That's what sticks in my crop. He can't be just right in his head. If I had any chance of owning you I'd never let you out of my sight. I wouldn't take a chance. I don't understand these city fellows. I reckon their blood is thinned with ice-water. If I had you I'd be scared every minute for fear of losing you. I'd be as dangerous to touch as a silver-tip. If I had any place to take you I'd steal you right now." This was more than banter. Even Mrs. Adams perceived the passion quivering beneath his easy, low-toned speech. He was in truth playing with the conception of seizing this half-smiling, half-musing girl whose helpless body was at once a lure and an inspiration. It was perfectly evident that he was profoundly stirred. And so was Alice. "What," she dared ask herself, "will become of this?" IV To the outlaw in the Rocky Mountain cabin in that stormy night it was in every respect the climax of his life. As he sat in the doorway, looking at the fire and over into the storm beyond, he realized that he was shaken by a wild, crude lyric of passion. Here was, to him, the pure emotion of love. All the beautiful things he had ever heard or read of girlhood, of women, of marriage, rose in his mind to make this night an almost intolerable blending of joy and sorrow, hope and despair. To stay time in its flight, to make this hour his own, to cheat the law, to hold the future at bay--these were the avid desires, the vague resolutions, of his brain. So sure as the day came this happiness would end. To-morrow he must resume his flight, resigning his new-found jewel into the hands of another. To this thought he returned again and again, each time with new adoration for the girl and added fury and hate against his relentless pursuers and himself. He did not spare himself! "Gad! what a fool I've been--and yet, if I had been less a fool I would not be here and I would never have met her." He ended with a glance toward Alice.