gesture was akin to locking a
door last night. But in a moment, his pity and loyalty and staunch faith
in her crowding the small ache out of his heart, he was unrolling a
pack, making a temporary couch for her and commanding her lovingly just
to lie down and look up at the tree-tops above her, and rest while he
staked out the horses. Sensing that perhaps the very bigness and
majestic silence of these uplands might rest heavy upon her spirit and
perhaps depress if not actually awake in her an emotion akin to fear, he
strove to cheer her by his own blithe acceptance of the fortune of the
hour. He told her heartily that she had earned a rest if any one ever
had; that it was well, after all, to get an early start at pitching
camp; that he was going to make his lady-love as cosy here in his big
outdoor home as was ever princess in castle walls. Gloria shivered and
threw herself face down on the blankets. Gloria did not know what
possessed her; she fought for repression, hiding her face from him. Out
of a hideously stern world a black spirit had leaped upon her; it
clutched at her throat, it dragged at her heart. When King called a
cheery word from beyond the thicket where he had gone with the horses,
she could have screamed. She was so nervous that now and again a fierce
tremor shook her from head to foot.

* * * * *

King was counting it fortunate that they were granted so likely a camp
site for the night. He looked up at the tall black cliffs shutting in
the little meadow; they would hold back the night winds from Gloria. He
chose the spot, well back from the creek, where she would sleep. High
overhead, like brooding giants, stood the upright pines. Where a little
clump of mere youngsters, lusty fellows not a score of years old, had
the air of pressing close together as though thus with their combined
strength they sought to match the strength of their aloof parents, a
compact grove to make a further shelter against the mountain air, Gloria
would sleep. He stretched a strip of canvas from tree to tree, making a
five-foot wall of it. Close by he started his fire, knowing from
experience oft repeated how a cheery blaze in the forest may dispel
shadows within even as it makes the sombrest of shadows dance gaily
under the trees; to one side he laid many resinous faggots, planning on
their crackling light later on when the dark came. He ringed his fire
with rocks, lugging them as heavy as he cou