n beds. But to-night I shall not
sleep. I will sit by this tree and watch."

"Why, what are you afraid of?" asked Ramona.

"It may grow so cold that I must make a fire for Majella," he answered.
"It sometimes gets very cold before morning in these canons; so I shall
feel safer to watch to-night."

This he said, not to alarm Ramona. His real reason for watching was,
that he had seen on the edge of the stream tracks which gave him
uneasiness. They were faint and evidently old; but they looked like the
tracks of a mountain lion. As soon as it was dark enough to prevent the
curl of smoke from being seen from below, he would light a fire, and
keep it blazing all night, and watch, gun in hand, lest the beast
return.

"But you will be dead, Alessandro, if you do not sleep. You are not
strong," said Ramona, anxiously.

"I am strong now, Majella," answered Alessandro. And indeed he did
already look like a renewed man, spite of all his fatigue and anxiety.
"I am no longer weak; and to-morrow I will sleep, and you shall watch."

"Will you lie on the fern-bed then?" asked Ramona, gleefully.

"I would like the ground better," said honest Alessandro.

Ramona looked disappointed. "That is very strange," she said. "It is
not so soft, this bed of boughs, that one need fear to be made tender by
lying on it," she continued, throwing herself down; "but oh, how sweet,
how sweet it smells!"

"Yes, there is spice-wood in it," he answered. "I put it in at the head,
for Majella's pillow."

Ramona was very tired, and she was happy. All night long she slept
like a child. She did not hear Alessandro's steps. She did not hear
the crackling of the fire he lighted. She did not hear the barking of
Capitan, who more than once, spite of all Alessandro could do to quiet
him, made the canon echo with sharp, quick notes of warning, as he heard
the stealthy steps of wild creatures in the chaparral. Hour after hour
she slept on. And hour after hour Alessandro sat leaning against a huge
sycamore-trunk, and watched her. As the fitful firelight played over her
face, he thought he had never seen it so beautiful, Its expression of
calm repose insensibly soothed and strengthened him. She looked like a
saint, he thought; perhaps it was as a saint of help and guidance, the
Virgin was sending her to him and his people. The darkness deepened,
became blackness; only the red gleams from the fire broke it, in swaying
rifts, as the wind makes rifts in black st