silken grass, to
charm his horse with her hand. As she started to do so, he hastened
to prevent her, but, utterly surprised, he saw the horse whinny to her
cheek, and arch his neck under her white palm--it was very white. Then
the animal's chin sought her shoulder and stayed placid. He had never
done so to anyone before save Hilton. Once, indeed, he had kicked a
stableman to death. He lifted his head and caught with playful shaking
lips at her ear. Hilton smiled; and so, as we said, their comradeship
began.

He was a new officer of the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Guidon. She was
the daughter of a ranchman. She had been educated by Father Corraine,
the Jesuit missionary, Protestant though she was. He had learned the
sign-language while assistant-priest in a Parisian chapel for mutes. He
taught her this gesture-tongue, which she, taking, rendered divine; and,
with this, she learned to read and write.

Her name was Ida.

Ida was faultless. Hilton was not; but no man is. To her, however, he
was the best that man can be. He was unselfish and altogether honest,
and that is much for a man.

When Pierre came to know of their friendship he shook his head
doubtfully. One day he was sitting on the hot side of a pine near his
mountain hut, soaking in the sun. He saw them passing below him, along
the edge of the hill across the ravine. He said to someone behind him in
the shade, who was looking also, "What will be the end of that, eh?"

And the someone replied: "Faith, what the Serpent in the Wilderness
couldn't cure."

"You think he'll play with her?"

"I think he'll do it without wishin' or willin', maybe. It'll be a case
of kiss and ride away."

There was silence. Soon Pierre pointed down again. She stood upon a
green mound with a cool hedge of rock behind her, her feet on the margin
of solid sunlight, her forehead bared. Her hair sprinkled round her as
she gently threw back her head. Her face was full on Hilton. She was
telling him something. Her gestures were rhythmical, and admirably
balanced. Because they were continuous or only regularly broken, it was
clear she was telling him a story. Hilton gravely, delightedly, nodded
response now and then, or raised his eyebrows in fascinated surprise.
Pierre, watching, was only aware of vague impressions--not any distinct
outline of the tale. At last he guessed it as a perfect pastoral-birds,
reaping, deer, winds, sundials, cattle, shepherds, hunting. To Hilton
it was a new