filled with a roar of rapid
water. Ranger trotted faster. Soon Helen came to the edge of a great
valley, black and gray, so full of obscurity that she could not see
across or down into it. But she knew there was a rushing river at
the bottom. The sound was deep, continuous, a heavy, murmuring roar,
singularly musical. The trail was steep. Helen had not lost all feeling,
as she had believed and hoped. Her poor, mistreated body still responded
excruciatingly to concussions, jars, wrenches, and all the other
horrible movements making up a horse-trot.

For long Helen did not look up. When she did so there lay a green,
willow-bordered, treeless space at the bottom of the valley, through
which a brown-white stream rushed with steady, ear-filling roar.

Dale and Roy drove the pack-animals across the stream, and followed,
going deep to the flanks of their horses. Bo rode into the foaming water
as if she had been used to it all her days. A slip, a fall, would have
meant that Bo must drown in that mountain torrent.

Ranger trotted straight to the edge, and there, obedient to Helen's
clutch on the bridle, he halted. The stream was fifty feet wide, shallow
on the near side, deep on the opposite, with fast current and big waves.
Helen was simply too frightened to follow.

"Let him come!" yelled Dale. "Stick on now!... Ranger!"

The big black plunged in, making the water fly. That stream was nothing
for him, though it seemed impassable to Helen. She had not the strength
left to lift her stirrups and the water surged over them. Ranger, in two
more plunges, surmounted the bank, and then, trotting across the green
to where the other horses stood steaming under some pines, he gave a
great heave and halted.

Roy reached up to help her off.

"Thirty miles, Miss Helen," he said, and the way he spoke was a
compliment.

He had to lift her off and help her to the tree where Bo leaned. Dale
had ripped off a saddle and was spreading saddle-blankets on the ground
under the pine.

"Nell--you swore--you loved me!" was Bo's mournful greeting. The girl
was pale, drawn, blue-lipped, and she could not stand up.

"Bo, I never did--or I'd never have brought you to this--wretch that I
am!" cried Helen. "Oh, what a horrible ride!"

Rain was falling, the trees were dripping, the sky was lowering. All the
ground was soaking wet, with pools and puddles everywhere. Helen could
imagine nothing but a heartless, dreary, cold prospect. Just then home