Love had been snowbound for many weeks. Before this imprisonment its course had run
neither smooth nor rough, so far as eye could see; it had run either not at all, or, as an
undercurrent, deep out of sight. In their rides, in their talks, love had been dumb, as to
spoken words at least; for the Virginian had set himself a heavy task of silence and of
patience. Then, where winter barred his visits to Bear Creek, and there was for the while
no ranch work or responsibility to fill his thoughts and blood with action, he set himself a
task much lighter. Often, instead of Shakespeare and fiction, school books lay open on
his cabin table; and penmanship and spelling helped the hours to pass. Many sheets of
paper did he fill with various exercises, and Mrs. Henry gave him her assistance in advice
and corrections.
"I shall presently be in love with him myself," she told the Judge. "And it's time for you
to become anxious."
"I am perfectly safe," he retorted. "There's only one woman for him any more."
"She is not good enough for him," declared Mrs. Henry. "But he'll never see that."
So the snow fell, the world froze, and the spelling-books and exercises went on. But this
was not the only case of education which was progressing at the Sunk Creek Ranch while
love was snowbound.
One morning Scipio le Moyne entered the Virginian's sitting room--that apartment where
Dr. MacBride had wrestled with sin so courageously all night.
The Virginian sat at his desk. Open books lay around him; a half-finished piece of writing
was beneath his fist; his fingers were coated with ink. Education enveloped him, it may
be said. But there was none in his eye. That was upon the window, looking far across the
cold plain.
The foreman did not move when Scipio came in, and this humorous spirit smiled to
himself. "It's Bear Creek he's havin' a vision of," he concluded. But he knew instantly that
this was not so. The Virginian was looking at something real, and Scipio went to the
window to see for himself.
"Well," he said, having seen, "when is he going to leave us?"
The foreman continued looking at two horsemen riding together. Their shapes, small in
the distance, showed black against the universal whiteness.
"When d' yu' figure he'll leave us?" repeated Scipio.
"He," murmured the Virginian, always watching the distant horsemen; and again, "he."
