th, and the knowledge gripped
him with fingers of steel. Even as he stood there, looking back upon
her quivering figure, it was no longer hate of Farnham which
controlled; it was love for her. He took a step toward her, hesitant,
uncertain, his heart a-throb with sympathy; yet what could he say?
What could he do? Utterly helpless to comfort, unable to even suggest
a way out, he drew back silently, closed the door behind him, and shut
her in. He felt one clear, unalterable conviction--under God, it
should not be for long.

He stood there in the brilliant sunlight, bareheaded still; looking
dreamily off across the wide reach of the canyon. How peaceful, how
sublimely beautiful, it all appeared; how delicately the tints of those
distant trees blended and harmonized with the brown rocks beyond! The
broad, spreading picture slowly impressed itself upon his brain,
effacing and taking the place of personal animosity. In so fair a
world Hope is ever a returning angel with healing in his wings; and
Winston's face brightened, the black frown deserting his forehead, all
sternness gone from his eyes. There surely must be a way somewhere,
and he would discover it; only the weakling and the coward can sit down
in despair. Out of the prevailing silence he suddenly distinguished
voices at hand, and the sound awoke him to partial interest. Just
before the door where he stood a thick growth of bushes obstructed the
view. The voices he heard indistinctly came from beyond, and he
stepped cautiously forward, peering in curiosity between the parted
branches.

It was a narrow section of the ledge, hemmed in by walls of rock and
thinly carpeted with grass, a small fire burning near its centre.
There was an appetizing smell of cookery in the air, and three figures
were plainly discernible. The old miner, Mike, sat next the embers, a
sizzling frying-pan not far away, his black pipe in one oratorically
uplifted hand, a tin plate in his lap, his grouchy, seamed old face
screwed up into argumentative ugliness, his angry eyes glaring at the
Swede opposite, who was loungingly propped against a convenient stone.
The latter looked a huge, ungainly, raw-boned fellow, possessing a red
and white complexion, with a perfect shock of blond hair wholly
unaccustomed to the ministrations of a comb. He had a long, peculiarly
solemn face, rendered yet more lugubrious by unwinking blue eyes and a
drooping moustache of straw color. Altogether, he co