hands and feet left
her. Time passed swiftly. The sun stood straight overhead before she
realized she had walked miles; and it declined westward as she skulked
like an Indian from tree to tree, from bush to bush, along the first
bench of the valley floor.

Night overtook her at the gateway of the valley. The vast monotony of
the plains opened before her like a gulf. She feared it. She found a
mound of earth with a wind-worn shelf in its side and overgrown with
sage; and into this she crawled, curled in the sand and prayed and
slept.

Next day she took up a position a few hundred yards from the trail and
followed its course, straining her eyes to see before and behind her,
husbanding her strength with frequent rests, and drinking from every
pool.

That day, like its predecessor, passed swiftly by and left her well
out upon the huge, billowy bosom of the plains. Again she sought a
hiding-place, but none offered. There was no warmth in the sand, and the
night wind arose, cold and moaning. She could not sleep. The whole empty
world seemed haunted. Rustlings of the sage, seepings of the sand,
gusts of the wind, the night, the loneliness, the faithless stars and
a treacherous moon that sank, the wailing of wolves--all these things
worked upon her mind and spirit until she lost her courage. She feared
to shut her eyes or cover her face, for then she could not see the
stealthy forms stalking her out of the gloom. She prayed no more to her
star.

"Oh, God, have you forsaken me?" she moaned.

How relentless the grip of the endless hours! The black night held fast.
And yet when she had grown nearly mad waiting for the dawn, it finally
broke, ruddy and bright, with the sun, as always, a promise of better
things to come.

Allie found no water that day. She suffered from the lack of it, but
hunger appeared to have left her. Her strength diminished, yet she
walked and plodded miles on miles, always gazing both hopelessly and
hopefully along the winding trail.

At the close of the short and merciful day despair seized upon Allie's
mind. With night came gloom and the memory of her mother's fate. She
still clung to a strange faith that all would soon be well. But
reason, fact, reality, these present things pointed to certain
doom--starvation--death by thirst--or Indians! A thousand times she
imagined she heard the fleet hoof-beating of many mustangs. Only the
tiny pats of the broken sage leaves in the wind!

It was a dark an