e worlds. It
remained for him merely to instruct her concerning what she must do;
then to find the way to bring her back safely to her father. Thereafter?
There the haze crept in again; he would go away, far from the Sierra,
far from California, to some corner of the world where no man who had
ever known Mark King would see him again. At that moment he could have
died very gladly, just to know that she was once more among her own
people, and that so far as he was concerned life was a game played out
and ended.

Now that he spoke again, his voice was no longer harsh and stern, but
gentle rather. Gentle after a steady and matter-of-fact fashion that was
infinitely aloof. He could not know how impersonal his utterance sounded
in her ears, since he did not fully realize how at the moment he held
himself less an individual addressing another than as the mouthpiece of
fate.

"The first thing in the morning," he told her, "I am going over the
ridge and to the headwaters of the other fork. I have been thinking of
that country a good deal; it's a little far and hard going and I'll burn
up a lot of fuel making the trip, but I've got a hunch a bear's in
there. The one that stampeded Buck may have circled around that way. And
I'm going to play every hunch I get, good and strong. It will probably
be dark before I get back."

She thought that he had finished. But presently, in the same strangely
quiet voice, he continued: "I may even be gone all night. If I am it
will be because I am playing the last card.... You have said that you
would rather be dead than go with me. I believe you meant that." Again
he paused. Gloria did not again lift her eyes from the fire; did not
speak. King sighed and did not know that he had done so. "If I don't get
back to-morrow night it will be because I am trying to break through to
civilization. I'll outfit a party and send them in for you. I'll get
through some way in two days; I'll get help back to you in another two
or three at latest. You have food here to keep you alive a week, if you
spin it out."

Long before he had gotten to the end of his slow speech her heart was
beating wildly. The old fears surged back on her, crushing her. To be
left here alone four or five days--and nights! It was unendurable! She
would be dead.

"You have your choice," he went on, his voice grown still more gentle.
"If you will let me help you--"

But, even while in the silence that followed she heard the rapid bea