st.

"Better come to-night," he urged. "The men get down the grade to
work very early; breakfast must be on time."

"I be on time," she replied. "I sleep here this night, every night.
I not sleep in camp."

Then he told her of the shack he had ordered and that was even now
being built.

She shook her head. "I sleep here every night," she reiterated.

Wingate had met many Indians in his time, so dropped the subject,
knowing full well that persuasion or argument would be utterly
useless.

"All right," he said; "you must do as you like; only remember, an
early breakfast to-morrow."

"I 'member," she replied.

He had ridden some twenty yards, when he turned to call back: "Oh,
what's your name, please?"

"Catharine," she answered, simply.

"Thank you," he said, and, touching his hat lightly, rode down
towards the canyon. Just as he was dipping over its rim he looked
back. She was still standing in the doorway, and above and about her
were the purple shadows, the awful solitude, of Crow's Nest
Mountain.

* * * * *

Catharine had been cooking at the camp for weeks. The meals were
good, the men respected her, and she went her way to and from her
shack at the canyon as regularly as the world went around. The
autumn slipped by, and the nipping frosts of early winter and the
depths of early snows were already daily occurrences. The big group
of solid log shacks that formed the construction camp were all made
weather-tight against the long mountain winter. Trails were
beginning to be blocked, streams to freeze, and "Old Baldy,"
already wore a canopy of snow that reached down to the timber line.

"Catharine," spoke young Wingate, one morning, when the clouds hung
low and a soft snow fell, packing heavily on the selfsame snows of
the previous night, "you had better make up your mind to occupy the
shack here. You won't be able to go to your home much longer now
at night; it gets dark so early, and the snows are too heavy."

"I go home at night," she repeated.

"But you can't all winter," he exclaimed. "If there was one single
horse we could spare from the grade work, I'd see you got it for
your journeys, but there isn't. We're terribly short now; every
animal in the Pass is overworked as it is. You'd better not try
going home any more."

"I go home at night," she repeated.

Wingate frowned impatiently; then in afterthought he smiled. "All
right, Catharine," he said, "but I warn y