uld have come. He knew
that. She would have sacrificed herself to him forever, would have gone
with him into a life which she could not understand, and would never
understand, satisfied to live in his love alone. The old, choking hand
gripped at his heart, and yet with the pain of it there was still a
rejoicing that he had not surrendered to the temptation, that he had been
strong enough to save her.

The last light of the setting sun cast film-like webs of yellow and gold
through the forest as he turned in the direction of camp. It was that hour
in which a wonderful quiet falls upon the wilderness, the last minutes
between night and day, when all wild life seems to shrink in suspensive
waiting for the change. Seven months had taught Roscoe a quiet of his own.
His moccasined feet made no sound. His head was bent, his shoulders had a
tired droop, and his eyes searched for nothing in the mystery about him.
His heart seemed weighted under a pressure that had taken all life from
him, and close above him, in a balsam bough, a night bird twittered. In
response to it a low cry burst from his lips, a cry of loneliness and of
grief. In that moment he saw Oachi again at his feet; he heard the low,
sweet note of love in her throat, so much like that of the bird over his
head; he saw the soft lustre of her hair, the glory of her eyes, looking up
at him from the half gloom of the tepee, telling him that they had found
their god. It was all so near, so real for a moment, that he sprang erect,
his fingers clutching handfuls of moss. He looked toward the camp, and he
saw something move between the rock and the fire.

It was a wolf, he thought, or perhaps a lynx, and drawing his revolver he
moved quickly and silently in its direction. The object had disappeared
behind a little clump of balsam shrub within fifty paces of the camp, and
as he drew nearer, until he was no more than ten paces away, he wondered
why it did not break cover.

There were no trees, and it was quite light where the balsam grew. He
approached, step by step. And then, suddenly, from almost under his hands,
something darted away with a strange, human cry, turning upon him for a
single instant a face that was as white as the white stars of early
night--a face with great, glowing, half-mad eyes. It was Oachi. His pistol
dropped to the ground. His heart stopped beating. No cry, no breath of
sound, came from his paralyzed lips. And like a wild thing Oachi was
fleeing fr