She held out her hand and he took and held it, pressing it in his own.
He felt troubled about her, unwilling to leave her in the snowbound
wilderness with that young savage of the smouldering eyes.
"Good-bye," said Pierre behind him. His soft voice had a click.
Holliwell turned to him. "Good-bye, Landis. I shan't see either of you
till the spring. I wish you a good winter and I hope--" He broke off
and held out his hand. "Well," said he, "you're pretty far out of
every one's way here. Be good to each other."
"Damn your interference!" said Pierre's eyes, but he took the hand and
even escorted Holliwell to his horse.
Snow came early and deep that winter. It fell for long, gray days and
nights, and then it came in hurricanes of drift, wrapping the cabin in
swirling white till only one window peered out and one gabled corner
cocked itself above the crust. Pierre had cut and stacked his winter
wood; he had sent his cows to a richer man's ranch for winter feeding.
There was very little for him to do. After he had brought in two
buckets of water from the well and had cut, for the day's consumption,
a piece of meat from his elk hanging outside against the wall, he had
only to sit and smoke, to read old magazines and papers, and to watch
Joan. Then the poisonous roots of his jealousy struck deep. Always his
brain, unaccustomed to physical idleness, was at work, falsely
interpreting her wistful silence--she was thinking of the parson,
hungry to read his books, longing for the open season and his coming
again to the ranch.
In December a man came in on snowshoes bringing "the mail"--one letter
for Pierre, a communication which brought heat to his face. The Forest
Service threatened him with a loss of land; it pointed to some flaw in
his title; part of his property, the most valuable part, had not yet
been surveyed.... Pierre looked up with set jaws, every fighting
instinct sharpened to hold what was his own.
"I hev put in two years' hard work on them acres," he told his
visitor, "an' I'm not plannin' to give them over to the first fool
favored by the Service. My title is as clean as my hand. It'll take
more'n thievery an' more'n spite to take it away from me."
"You better go to Robinson," advised the bearer of the letter; "can't
get after them fellers too soon. It's a country where you can easy
come by what you want, but where it ain't so easy to hold on to it. If
it ain't yer land, it's yer hosses; if it ain't yer hosses, it's yer
wife." He looked at Joan and laughed.