The Chalice Of Courage: A Romance of Colorado

"Oh!" exclaimed the woman faintly at the dire possibility that she might not be found.

"I took an empty bottle with me," said the man, breaking the silence, "in which I had enclosed a paper saying that you were here and safe, save for your wounded foot, and giving directions how to reach the place. I built a cairn of rocks in a sheltered nook in the valley where your camp had been pitched and left the tightly corked bottle wedged on top of it. If they return to the camp they can scarcely fail to see it."

"But if they don't go back there."

"Well, it was just a chance."

"And if they don't find me?"

"You will have to stay here for a while; until your foot gets well enough to travel," returned the man evasively.

"But winter is coming on, you said the lake would freeze to-night, and if it snows?"

"It will snow."

The woman stared at him, appalled.

"And in that case – "

"I am afraid," was the slow reply, "that you will have to stay here" – he hesitated in the face of her white still face – "all winter," he added desperately.

"Alone!" exclaimed the girl faintly. "With you?"

"Miss Maitland," said the man resolutely, "I might as well tell you the truth. I can make my way to the settlements now or later, but it will be a journey of perhaps a week. There will be no danger to me, but you will have to stay here. You could not go with me. If I am any judge you couldn't possibly use your foot for a mountain journey for at least three weeks, and by that time we shall be snowed in as effectually as if we were within the Arctic Circle. But if you will let me go alone to the settlement I can bring back your uncle, and a woman to keep you company, before the trails are impassable. Or enough men to make it practicable to take you through the cañons and down the trails to your home again. I could not do that alone even if you were well, in the depth of the winter."

The girl shook her head stubbornly.

"A week alone in these mountains and I should be mad," she said decisively. "It isn't to be thought of."

"It must be thought of," urged the man. "You don't understand. It is either that or spend the winter here – with me."

The woman looked at him steadily.

"And what have I to fear from you?" she asked.

"Nothing, nothing," protested the other, "but the world?"

"The world," said the woman reflectively. "I don't mean to say that it means nothing to me, but it has cause enough for what it would fain say now." She came to her decision swiftly. "There is no help for it," she continued; "we are marooned together." She smiled faintly as she used the old word of tropic island and southern sea. "You have shown me that you are a man and a gentleman, in God and you I put my trust. When my foot gets well, if you can teach me to walk on snow shoes and it is possible to get through the passes, we will try to go back; if not, we must wait."

"The decision is yours," said the man, "yet I feel that I ought to point out to you how – "

"I see all that you see," she interrupted. "I know what is in your mind, it is entirely clear to me, we can do nothing else."

"So be it. You need have no apprehension as to your material comfort; I have lived in these mountains for a long time, I am prepared for any emergency, I pass my time in the summer getting ready for the winter. There is a cave, or recess rather, behind the house which, as you see, is built against the rock wall, and it is filled with wood enough to keep us warm for two or three winters; I have an ample supply of provisions and clothing for my own needs, but you will need something warmer than that you wear," he continued.

"Have you needle and thread and cloth?" she asked.

"Everything," was the prompt answer.

"Then I shall not suffer."

"Are you that wonder of wonders," asked the man, smiling slightly, "an educated woman who knows how to sew?"

"It is a tradition of Philadelphia," answered the girl, "that her daughters should be expert needlewomen."

"Oh, you are from Philadelphia."

"Yes, and you?"

She threw the question at him so deftly and so quickly that she caught him unaware and off his guard a second time within the hour.

"Baltimore," he answered before he thought and then bit his lip.

He had determined to vouchsafe her no information regarding himself and here she had surprised him into an admission in the first blush of their acquaintance, and she knew that she had triumphed for she smiled in recognition of it.

She tried another tack.

"Mr. Newbold," she began at a venture, and as it was five years since he had heard that name, his surprise at her knowledge, which after all was very simple, betrayed him a third time. "We are like stories I have read, people who have been cast away on desert islands and – "

"Yes," said the man, "but no castaways that I have ever read of have been so bountifully provided with everything necessary to the comfort of life as we are. I told you I lacked nothing for your material welfare, and even your mind need not stagnate."

"I have looked at your books already," said the woman, answering his glance.

This was where she had found his name he realized.

"You will have this room for your own use and I will take the other for mine," he continued.

"I am loath to dispossess you."

"I shall be quite comfortable there, and this shall be your room exclusively except when you bid me enter, as when I bring you your meals; otherwise I shall hold it inviolate."

"But," said the woman, "there must be an equal division of labor, I must do my share."

"There isn't much to do in the winter, except to take care of the burros, keep up the fire and prepare what we have to eat."

"I am afraid I should be unequal to outdoor work, but in the rest I must do my part."

He recognized at once that idleness would be irksome.

"So you shall," he assented heartily, "when your foot is well enough to make you an efficient member of our little society."

"Thank you, and now – "

"Is there anything else before I get supper?"

"You think there is no hope of their searching for me here?"

The man shook his head.