Page:Honore Willsie--Judith of the godless valley.djvu/330

 Surely against something stupendous, something that a man was powerless to help her to free herself from or to bear.

Ah, Judith! Judith! Judith all fire, all wistfulness, all strength and beauty! What was he, after all, to hope to claim her, or even having won her, how was he to keep her? How was he to keep within his ken that restless, soaring spirit? What could he give her that would satisfy, and hold her? For the first time in many years, Douglas could have wept; wept for very sadness that Judith should be so lonely and so wistful.

How long he sat shivering with his burning eyes on the fire, Douglas did not know. He was roused by a faint cry above the wind. At first he thought it was a coyote. But when it repeated, he started to his feet and concentrated in an agony of attention on the sound. Once more it came, longdrawn, troubled, the howl of a dog. Doug dropped the blankets and strode from the shelter of the trees to deliver a long coo-ee. The wind was against him. There was no response.

He hurriedly dragged his entire supply of firewood before the shelter and set it to blazing. Then he plunged on foot downward through the wind-swept, snow-driven darkness.

It was a terrible journey. He slipped and fell so often and so far that when the light behind him dwindled to a faint point, he dared continue no farther. Standing waist-deep in snow, he whistled and called. But the cyclone wind drove the sound back into his teeth. Sick at soul, he prepared to turn back. He beat his arms across his chest, stamped his feet, slipped, and once more rolled downward. He brought up with a crash in a cedar clump. A dog barked and threw himself against Doug with a snarl that changed at once to a whine of joy.