ray for him. But she could not speak.
Her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth and she seemed strangling.

Another change, slower and more subtle, passed over Kells. He did not
see Joan. He forgot her. The white shaded out of his face, leaving a
gray like that of his somber eyes. Spirit, sense, life, were fading from
him. The quivering of a racked body ceased. And all that seemed left was
a lonely soul groping on the verge of the dim borderland between life
and death. Presently his shoulders slipped along the wall and he fell,
to lie limp and motionless before Joan. Then she fainted.

6

When Joan returned to consciousness she was lying half outside the
opening of the cabin and above her was a drift of blue gun-smoke, slowly
floating upward. Almost as swiftly as perception of that smoke came a
shuddering memory. She lay still, listening. She did not hear a sound
except the tinkle and babble and gentle rush of the brook. Kells was
dead, then. And overmastering the horror of her act was a relief, a
freedom, a lifting of her soul out of the dark dread, a something that
whispered justification of the fatal deed.

She got up and, avoiding to look within the cabin, walked away. The sun
was almost at the zenith. Where had the morning hours gone?

"I must get away," she said, suddenly. The thought quickened her. Down
the canon the horses were grazing. She hurried along the trail, trying
to decide whether to follow this dim old trail or endeavor to get out
the way she had been brought in. She decided upon the latter. If she
traveled slowly, and watched for familiar landmarks, things she had seen
once, and hunted carefully for the tracks, she believed she might be
successful. She had the courage to try. Then she caught her pony and led
him back to camp.

"What shall I take?" she pondered. She decided upon very little--a
blanket, a sack of bread and meat, and a canteen of water. She might
need a weapon, also. There was only one, the gun with which she had
killed Kells. It seemed utterly impossible to touch that hateful thing.
But now that she had liberated herself, and at such cost, she must not
yield to sentiment. Resolutely she started for the cabin, but when she
reached it her steps were dragging. The long, dull-blue gun lay where
she had dropped it. And out of the tail of averted eyes she saw a
huddled shape along the wall. It was a sickening moment when she reached
a shaking hand for the gun. And at that instant