"Miss Arundel"--his voice came thin and tender, feeling its way
doubtfully as though it was too heavy a reality--"let me help you. You
_are_ Miss Arundel, aren't you? I'm Dickie--Dickie Hudson, Pap Hudson's
son. You hadn't ought to be scared. I saw you coming out alone and took
after you. I thought you might find it kind of lonesome up here on the
flat at night in all the moonlight--hearing the coyotes and all. And,
look-a-here, you might have had a time getting out of the snow. Oncet a
fellow breaks through it sure means a floundering time before a fellow
pulls himself out--"

She had given him a hand, and he had pulled her up beside him. Her smile
of relief seemed very beautiful to Dickie.

"I came out," she said, "because it looked so wonderful--and I wanted
to see--" She stopped, looking at him doubtfully, as though she
expected him not to understand, to think her rather mad. But he
finished her sentence.

"--To see the mountains, wasn't it?"

"Yes." She was again relieved, almost as much so, it seemed, as at the
knowledge of his friendliness. "Especially that big one." She waved her
muff toward the towering peak. "I never did see such a night! It's
like--it's like--" She widened her eyes, as though, by taking into her
brain an immense picture of the night, she might find out its likeness.

Dickie, moving uncertainly beside her, murmured, "Like the inside of a
cold flame, a very white flame."

Sheila turned her chin, pointed above the fur collar of her coat, and