ne, in line with the course of the wound. She
tore her scarf into strips and used it for compresses and bandages.
Then she laid him back upon a saddle-blanket. She had done all that was
possible for the present, and it gave her a strange sense of comfort.
She even prayed for his life, and, if that must go, for his soul. Then
she got up. He was unconscious, white, death-like. It seemed that his
torture, his near approach to death, had robbed his face of ferocity,
of ruthlessness, and of that strange amiable expression. But then, his
eyes, those furnace-windows, were closed.

Joan waited for the end to come. The afternoon passed and she did not
leave the cabin. It was possible that he might come to and want water.
She had once administered to a miner who had been fatally crushed in
an avalanche; and never could forget his husky call for water and the
gratitude in his eyes.

Sunset, twilight, and night fell upon the canon. And she began to feel
solitude as something tangible. Bringing saddle and blankets into the
cabin, she made a bed just inside, and, facing the opening and the
stars, she lay down to rest, if not to sleep. The darkness did not keep
her from seeing the prostrate figure of Kells. He lay there as silent
as if he were already dead. She was exhausted, weary for sleep, and
unstrung. In the night her courage fled and she was frightened at
shadows. The murmuring of insects seemed augmented into a roar; the
mourn of wolf and scream of cougar made her start; the rising wind
moaned like a lost spirit. Dark fancies beset her. Troop on troop of
specters moved out of the black night, assembling there, waiting for
Kells to join them. She thought she was riding homeward over the back
trail, sure of her way, remembering every rod of that rough travel,
until she got out of the mountains, only to be turned back by dead men.
Then fancy and dream, and all the haunted gloom of canon and cabin,
seemed slowly to merge into one immense blackness.

The sun, rimming the east wall, shining into Joan's face, awakened
her. She had slept hours. She felt rested, stronger. Like the night,
something dark had passed away from her. It did not seem strange to
her that she should feel that Kells still lived. She knew it. And
examination proved her right. In him there had been no change except
that he had ceased to bleed. There was just a flickering of life in him,
manifest only in his slow, faint heart-beats.

Joan spent most of that day