, and pointed off into the
ghostly world of light and shadow that lay at their feet.

"Your camp is on the other side of this plain, M'sieur," he said. "Do
you recognize the country?"

"I have hunted along this ridge," replied Philip. "It is only three
miles from here, and I will strike a beaten trail half a mile out
yonder. A thousand thanks, Pierre."

He held out his hand.

"Good-by, M'sieur."

"Good-by, Pierre."

Their voices trembled. Their hands gripped hard. A choking lump rose in
Philip's throat, and Pierre turned away. He disappeared slowly in the
gray gloom, and Philip went down the side of the mountain. From the
plain below he looked back. For an instant he saw Pierre drawn like a
silhouette against the sky.

"Good-by, Pierre," he shouted.

"Good-by, M'sieur," came back faintly.

Light and silence dropped about them.

XIX

To be alone, even after the painful parting with Pierre, was in one way
a relief to Philip, for with the disappearance of the lonely half-breed
over the mountain there had gone from him the last physical association
that bound him to Jeanne and her people. With Pierre at his side,
Jeanne was still with him; but now that Pierre was gone there came a
change in him--one of those unaccountable transmutations of the mind
which make the passing of yesterdays more like a short dream than a
long and full reality. He walked slowly over the plain, and, when he
came to the trail beaten by the hoofs of his own teams he followed it
mechanically. In his measurement of things now, it seemed only a few
hours since he had traveled over this trail on his way to Fort
Churchill; it might, have been that morning, or the morning before. The
weeks of his absence had passed with marvelous swiftness, now that he
looked back upon them. They seemed short and trivial. And yet he knew
that in those weeks he had lived more of his life than he had ever
lived before, or would ever live again. For a brief spell life had
been, filled with joy and hope--a promise of happiness which a single
moment in the shadow of the Sun Rock had destroyed forever. He had seen
Jeanne in another man's arms; he had read the confirmation of his fears
in Pierre's grief-distorted face, in the strange tremble of his voice,
in the words that he had spoken. He was sorry for Pierre. He would have
been glad if that other man had been the lovable half-breed; if Jeanne,
in the poetry of life and love, had given herself to the one