, the youth and vitality and life of
it, he had the fear of a man who was running towards a precipice and who
could not draw back. This was a climb, a lark, a wild race to the
Mormon girl, bound now in the village, and by the very freedom of it she
betrayed her bonds. To Shefford it was also a wild race, but toward one
sure goal he dared not name.

They went on, and at length, hand in hand, even where no steep step or
wide fissure gave reason for the clasp. But she seemed unconscious. They
were nearing the last height, a bare eminence, when she broke from him
and ran up the smooth stone. When he surmounted it she was standing on
the very summit, her arms wide, her full breast heaving, her slender
body straight as an Indian's, her hair flying in the wind and blazing in
the sun. She seemed to embrace the west, to reach for something afar,
to offer herself to the wind and distance. Her face was scarlet from the
exertion of the climb, and her broad brow was moist. Her eyes had
the piercing light of an eagle's, though now they were dark. Shefford
instinctively grasped the essence of this strange spirit, primitive
and wild. She was not the woman who had met him at the spring. She
had dropped some side of her with that Mormon hood, and now she stood
totally strange.

She belonged up here, he divined. She was a part of that wildness. She
must have been born and brought up in loneliness, where the wind blew
and the peaks loomed and silence held dominion. The sinking sun touched
the rim of the distant wall, and as if in parting regret shone with
renewed golden fire. And the girl was crowned as with a glory.

Shefford loved her then. Realizing it, he thought he might have loved
her before, but that did not matter when he was certain of it now.
He trembled a little, fearfully, though without regret. Everything
pertaining to his desert experience had been strange--this the strangest
of all.

The sun sank swiftly, and instantly there was a change in the golden
light. Quickly it died out. The girl changed as swiftly. She seemed
to remember herself, and sat down as if suddenly weary. Shefford went
closer and seated himself beside her.

"The sun has set. We must go," she said. But she made no movement.

"Whenever you are ready," replied he.

Just as the blaze had died out of her eyes, so the flush faded out of
her face. The whiteness stole back, and with it the sadness. He had
to bite his tongue to keep from telling her what he