ed.

"I go always to the village to sleep," she answered simply, and so left
him.

But in the morning while yet the red of sunrise burned above the great
peak Orazaba, she returned, bearing upon her head an olla of carved
stone filled with water from a mountain spring. This in smiling silence
she set before him and disappeared. Within the hour, however, she was
back again and this time, kneeling on the ground, she laid at his feet
the ripe fruit of the manzanita tree, lying like small red apples, dewy
fresh, upon a wild-grape leaf.

"Ala--ate, see! Are they not good?" she asked triumphantly.

And so from day to day she ministered to him. Many a time as he
sat, listless and moody, within his hiding-place, a handful of wild
strawberries, steeped in the warm sweetness of the hills, would be
pushed beneath the leafy branches that concealed the door. Sometimes
she brought him bread baked from a curious kind of meal made of pounded
seeds.

Once, too, when a sudden storm had chilled the air, she kindled a fire
for him within a smaller cave, receding like a fire-place into the rocky
wall opposite the opening. It was a long and tedious process which
the man watched curiously. First, kneeling on the ground, she rubbed
together two dry willow sticks until a little pile of dust had gathered.
Then, still stooping, she struck two flints together until at last a
spark fell into the dust. Some dry leaves were dropped upon the tiny
blaze, then twigs, and lo, a fire!

In spite of himself the Englishman smiled, though a softer feeling shown
in his eyes. How beautiful and yet how childish she looked kneeling
there with the anxious pucker between her brows. Poor little princess,
how very hard she worked to serve him!

"It takes a long time, Wildenai," he observed, "dost thou try it often?"

"Never for myself," she answered gravely. "I have no need. But I do it
gladly for you." She smiled brightly back at him, then rose and moved
swiftly to the doorway. "Another thing I do for you today. Wait!"

And when she returned a few minutes later she brought with her,
carefully wrapped in cool green leaves, a fish freshly caught that
morning.

"A brook trout, on my word, such as I have often taken in the streams at
home!" exclaimed Lord Harold, amazed.

"I got it far up the canyon before the sun was risen," she answered,
delighted at his surprise.

This, having quickly dressed it, she wrapped again in leaves and placed
under the hot as