"Come back!" called Ben to the man ahead.
Again Tom obeyed. He would have gone barefoot in the snow without a question now.
"Can you make a fire?"
"Yes."
"Do it, then. I left the matches in your pocket."
On opposite sides of the fire, from long forked sticks of green ash, they broiled strips of the meat which Ben dressed and cut. Likewise fronting each other, they ate in silence. Darkness was falling, and the glow from the embers lit their faces like those of two friends camping after a day's hunt. Had it not all been such deadly earnest, the scene would have been farce-comedy. Suddenly Tom Blair raised his eyes.
"What are you going to do with me?" he asked directly.
Ben said nothing.
The question was not repeated, but another trembled on the speaker's lips. At last it found words.
"When you had me down I--I thought you had done for me. Why did you--let me up?"
A pause followed. Then Ben's blue eyes raised and met the other's.
"You'd really like to know?"
"Yes."
Another moment of hesitation, but the youth's eyes did not move. "Very well, I'll tell you." More to himself than to the other he was speaking. His voice softened unconsciously. "A girl saved you that time, Tom Blair, a girl you never saw. You haven't any idea what it means, but I love that girl, and I could never look her in the face again with blood on my hands, even such blood as yours. That's the reason."
For a moment Tom Blair was silent; then into his brain there flashed a suggestion, and he grasped at it as a drowning man at a straw.
"Wouldn't it be blood on your hands just the same if you take me back where we're headed, back to Mick Kennedy and--"
With a single motion, swift as though raised by a spring, Ben was upon his feet.
"Pick up your blanket!"
"But--"
"Silence!" The big square jaw shot forward like the piston of an engine. "Not another word of that, now or ever. Not another word!"
For a second the other paused doggedly, then taking up his load he moved ahead into the shadow.
Hour after hour they advanced, alternately walking and trotting, following the winding bed of the stream. Darkness fell, until they could not see each other's faces, until they were merely two black passing shadows; but the figure behind was relentless. Stimulating, compelling, he forced himself close. Ever and anon they could hear the frightened dash of a rabbit away from their path. More than once a snow-owl fluttered over their heads; but they took no notice. Twice the man in advance stumbled and fell; but though Ben paused he spoke no word. Like a soldier of the ranks on secret forced march, ignorant of his destination, given only conjecture as to what the morrow would bring forth, Tom Blair panted ahead.