new ones?"

"No, I forgot my feet." She laughed, and the spell of tears was
broken. The long strain of anxiety and fear and then the sudden
release had been too much. Moreover, she was faint with hunger.
Without explanation Harry King understood. He looked to the mother for
help and saw that a change had come over her. Roused from her apathy
she was preparing food, and looking from her to Amalia, they exchanged
a glance of mutual relief.

"How it is beautiful to see her!" Amalia spoke low. "It is my hurt
that is good for her mind. I am glad of the hurt."

He sat with the shoe in his hand. "Will you let me bind your ankle,
Amalia? It will grow worse unless something is done quickly." He spoke
humbly, as one beseeching a favor.

"Now it is already better, you have remove the shoe." How he loved her
quaint, rapid speech! "Mamma will bind it, for you have to do for
those horse and the mule. I know--I have seen--to take them to drink
and eat, and take from them the load--the burden. It is the box--for
that have you risk your life, and the gladness we feel to again have
it is--is only one greater--and that is to have you again with us. Oh,
what a sorrow and terror--if you had not come--I can never make you
know. When I see those Indian come walking after each other so as they
go--my heart cease to beat--and my body become like the ice--for the
fear. When fearing for myself, it is bad, but when for another it is
much--much--more terrible. So have I found it."

Her mother came then to attend to her hurt, interrupting Amalia's flow
of speech, and Harry went out to the animals, full of care and
misgiving. What now could he do? How endure the days to come with
their torture of repression? How shield her from himself and his
love--when she so freely gave? What middle course was possible,
without making her suffer?

That afternoon all the events of his journey were told to them as they
questioned him keenly, and he learned by little words and looks
exchanged between them how great had been their anxiety for him, and
of their night of terror on the mountain. But now that it was past and
they were all unhurt except for Amalia's accident, they made light of
it. He dragged in the box, and before he left them that night he
prepared Larry's gun, and told Amalia to let nothing frighten her.

"Don't leave the bunk, nor put your foot to the ground. Fire the gun
at the slightest disturbance, and I will surely hear. I have another
in