of her. She stared at the squaw and
found herself longing to cry out for help. It seemed as if she could not
bear this awful silence of the mortals who were her only company. Yet
her common sense came to her aid, and she realized that there was
nothing for it but to make the best of things. So she took the blanket
and, spreading it out, sat down upon it and wrapped it about her
shoulders and feet. She would not lie down until she saw what the rest
did. Somehow she shrank from asking the bronze man how to fold a blanket
for a bed on the ground. She tried to remember what Gardley had told her
about folding the blanket bed so as best to keep out snakes and ants.
She shuddered at the thought of snakes. Would she dare call for help
from those stolid companions of hers if a snake should attempt to molest
her in the night? And would she ever dare to go to sleep?

She remembered her first night in Arizona out among the stars, alone on
the water-tank, and her first frenzy of loneliness. Was this as bad? No,
for these Indians were trustworthy and well known by her dear friends.
It might be unpleasant, but this, too, would pass and the morrow would
soon be here.

The dusk dropped down and the stars loomed out. All the world grew
wonderful, like a blue jeweled dome of a palace with the lights turned
low. The fire burned brightly as the man threw sticks upon it, and the
two Indians moved stealthily about in the darkness, passing silhouetted
before the fire this way and that, and then at last lying down wrapped
in their blankets to sleep.

It was very quiet about her. The air was so still she could hear the
hobbled horses munching away in the distance, and moving now and then
with the halting gait a hobble gives a horse. Off in the farther
distance the blood-curdling howl of the coyotes rose, but Margaret was
used to them, and knew they would not come near a fire.

She was growing very weary, and at last wrapped her blanket closer and
lay down, her head pillowed on one corner of it. Committing herself to
her Heavenly Father, and breathing a prayer for father, mother, and
lover, she fell asleep.

It was still almost dark when she awoke. For a moment she thought it was
still night and the sunset was not gone yet, the clouds were so rosy
tinted.

The squaw was standing by her, touching her shoulder roughly and
grunting something. She perceived, as she rubbed her eyes and tried to
summon back her senses, that she was expected to