mines. It might have been she refused to go away, and leave those
behind her in the wilderness to whom she owed all the camp had brought
her, because they would have missed her so sadly.

And yet after all had things gone on smoothly there was no great reason
for her to hurry away. But as it was, it was certainly going to blow
great guns, and she certainly knew it.

But here she was now ill, very ill. All this gold was dross. It was
nothing to her now. She could hardly lift her hand to the row of golden
oranges that lay there before her on the little mantel. She looked at
Sandy as he entered and tried to smile. There were tears in her eyes as
she did this, and then she hid her face in her hands.

He went and stood and looked in the fire, and tried to think what he
should do. Then he went and stood by her bed, and waited there till she
uncovered her face and looked up.

She was very pale, and he tried but could not speak.

"Is it raining, Sandy dear?"

She asked this because as she put her hand out some drops fell down from
his head upon her own.

"My pretty baby, my baby in the woods, what in the world is the matter?"

He leaned over her, and his voice trembled as he spoke. Then he went
down on his knees, and his beard swept her face.

"Is it cold, Sandy dear? Do you think that we, that I, could cross the
mountains to-day? If we went slow and careful, and climbed over the snow
on our hands and knees, don't you think it could be done, Sandy?"

She kept on asking this question, and arguing it all the time, because
the man kept looking at her in a wild, helpless way, and could not
answer a word.

"If we went up the trail a little way at a time, and then rested there
under the trees, and waited for the snow to melt, and then went on a
little way each day, and so on, as fast as it melted off, up the
mountain, don't you think it could be done, Sandy?"

The man was dumb. He kneeled there, grinding his great palms together,
looking all the time, and looking at nothing.

There was a long silence then, and still Sandy kneeled by the bed. His
eyes kept wandering about till they lighted on a striped gown that hung
hard by on the wall. He fell to counting these stripes. He counted them
up and down, and across, and then counted them backward, and was quite
certain he had got it all wrong, and fell to counting it over again.

The little woman writhed with pain, and that brought the dreamer to his
senses again. It pass