y and passion engendered by
a wild life among wild men at a wild time. And, considering his
opportunities of the long hours and lonely miles, she was grateful, and
did not in the least underestimate what it cost him, how different from
Bill or Halloway he had been. But all this was nothing, and her thinking
of it useless, unless he conquered himself. She only waited, holding on
to that steel-like control of her nerves, motionless and silent.

She leaned back against her saddle, a blanket covering her, with
wide-open eyes, and despite the presence of that stalking figure and the
fact of her mind being locked round one terrible and inevitable thought,
she saw the changing beautiful glow of the fire-logs and the cold,
pitiless stars and the mustering shadows under the walls. She heard,
too, the low rising sigh of the wind in the balsam and the silvery
tinkle of the brook, and sounds only imagined or nameless. Yet a stern
and insupportable silence weighed her down. This dark canon seemed
at the ends of the earth. She felt encompassed by illimitable and
stupendous upflung mountains, insulated in a vast, dark, silent tomb.

Kells suddenly came to her, treading noiselessly, and he leaned over
her. His visage was a dark blur, but the posture of him was that of a
wolf about to spring. Lower he leaned--slowly--and yet lower. Joan
saw the heavy gun swing away from his leg; she saw it black and clear
against the blaze; a cold, blue light glinted from its handle. And then
Kells was near enough for her to see his face and his eyes that were but
shadows of flames. She gazed up at him steadily, open-eyed, with no fear
or shrinking. His breathing was quick and loud. He looked down at her
for an endless moment, then, straightening his bent form, he resumed his
walk to and fro.

After that for Joan time might have consisted of moments or hours, each
of which was marked by Kells looming over her. He appeared to approach
her from all sides; he round her wide-eyed, sleepless; his shadowy
glance gloated over her lithe, slender shape; and then he strode away
into the gloom. Sometimes she could no longer hear his steps and then
she was quiveringly alert, listening, fearful that he might creep upon
her like a panther. At times he kept the camp-fire blazing brightly; at
others he let it die down. And these dark intervals were frightful
for her. The night seemed treacherous, in league with her foe. It was
endless. She prayed for dawn--yet with a