Lennox's voice grew pleading. "Be sensible, Dan!" he cried. "That Cranston's got us, and got us right. I've only one thing more I care about--and that is that you pay the debt! I can't hope to get out myself. I say that I can't even hope to. But if you bring my daughter through--and when the spring comes, pay what we owe to Cranston--I'll be content. Heavens, son--I've lived my life. The old pack leader dies when his time comes, and so does a man."
His daughter crept to him and sheltered his gray head against her breast. "I'll stay with you then," she cried.
"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," 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."