too. It was through her that I met this
Indian, Nas Ta Bega. He has saved my life--taught me much. What would I
ever have learned of the naked and vast earth, of the sublimity of the
wild uplands, of the storm and night and sun, if I had not followed a
gleam she inspired? In my hunt for a lost girl perhaps I wandered into
a place where I shall find a God and my salvation. Do you marvel that I
love Fay Larkin--that she is not dead to me? Do you marvel that I love
her, when I KNOW, were she alive, chained in a canyon, or bound, or lost
in any way, my destiny would lead me to her, and she should be saved?"

Shefford ended, overcome with emotion. In the dusk he could not see the
girl's face, but the white form that had drooped so listlessly
seemed now charged by some vitalizing current. He knew he had spoken
irrationally; still he held it no dishonor to have told her he loved
her as one dead. If she took that love to the secret heart of living Fay
Larkin, then perhaps a spirit might light in her darkened soul. He had
no thought yet that Fay Larkin might ever belong to him. He divined a
crime--he had seen her agony. And this avowal of his was only one step
toward her deliverance.

Softly she rose, retreating into the shadow.

"Forgive me if I--I disturb you, distress you," he said. "I wanted to
tell you. She was--somehow known to you. I am not happy. And are YOU
happy?... Let her memory be a bond between us.... Good night."

"Good night."

Faintly as the faintest whisper breathed her reply, and, though it came
from a child forced into womanhood, it whispered of girlhood not dead,
of sweet incredulity, of amazed tumult, of a wondering, frantic desire
to run and hide, of the bewilderment incident to a first hint of love.

Shefford walked away into the darkness. The whisper filled his soul. Had
a word of love ever been spoken to that girl? Never--not the love which
had been on his lips. Fay Larkin's lonely life spoke clearly in her
whisper.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Next morning as the sun gilded the looming peaks and shafts of gold
slanted into the valley she came swiftly down the path to the spring.

Shefford paused in his task of chopping wood. Joe Lake, on his knees,
with his big hands in a pan of dough, lifted his head to stare. She
had left off the somber black hood, and, although that made a vast
difference in her, still it was not enough to account for what struck
both men.

"Good morning," she called, bright