d they came at last through innumerable hardships to the
Kimash Hills, the hills of the Mighty Men, and there they stayed. It was
not an evil land; it had neither deadly cold in winter nor wanton heat
in summer. But they never saw a human face, and everything was lonely
and spectral. For a time they strove to go eastwards or southwards but
the mountains were impassable, and in the north and west there was no
hope. Though the buffalo swept by them in the valley they could not slay
them, and they lived on forest fruits until in time the man sickened.
The woman nursed him faithfully, but still he failed; and when she could
go forth no more for food, some unseen dweller of the woods brought
buffalo meat, and prairie fowl, and water from the spring, and laid them
beside her door.

She had seen the mounds upon the hill, the wide couches of the sleepers,
and she remembered the things done in the days when God seemed nearer
to the sons of men than now; and she said that a spirit had done this
thing, and trembled and was thankful. But the man weakened and knew that
he should die, and one night when the pain was sharp upon him he prayed
bitterly that he might pass, or that help might come to snatch him from
the grave. And as they sobbed together, a form entered at the door,--a
form clothed in scarlet,--and he bade them tell the tale of their lives
as they would some time tell it unto heaven. And when the tale was told
he said that succour should come to them from the south by the hand of
the Scarlet Hunter, that the nation sleeping there should no more be
disturbed by their moaning. And then he had gone forth, and with his
going there was a storm such as that in which the man had died, the
storm that had assailed the hunters in the forest yesterday.

This was the second part of Hester Orval's life as she told it to Just
Trafford. And he, looking into her eyes, knew that she had suffered, and
that she had sounded her husband's unworthiness. Then he turned from her
and went into the room where the dead man lay. And there all hardness
passed from him, and he understood that in the great going forth man
reckons to the full with the deeds done in that brief pilgrimage called
life; and that in the bitter journey which this one took across the
dread spaces between Here and There, he had repented of his sins,
because they, and they only, went with him in mocking company; the good
having gone first to plead where evil is a debtor and hath