anch house door; back and forth like an automaton, back and
forth in a motion that seemed perpetual. Within the tiny low-ceiled
room, in the fulness of time, the girl sobbed herself into a fitful
sleep; but not once did the sentinel pause to rest, not once in those
dragging hours before day did he relax. With the coming of the first
trace of light he halted, and on silent moccasined feet stole within.
But again he only remained for moments, and when he returned it was
merely to stride away to the stable. Within the space of minutes, before
the east had fairly begun to grow red, silently as he did everything, he
rode away astride the mouse-coloured cayuse into the darkness to the
west.

* * * * *

It was broad day when the girl awoke, and then with a vague sense of
depression and of impending evil. The door was open and the bright
morning light flooded the room. Beyond the entrance stretched the open
prairie: an endless sea of green with a tiny brown island, her own
dooryard, in the foreground. With dull listlessness, the girl propped
herself up in bed and sat looking about her. Absently, aimlessly, her
eyes passed from one familiar object to another. Without any definite
conception of why or of where, she was conscious of an impression of
change in the material world about her, a change that corresponded to
the mental crisis that had so recently taken place. Glad as was the
sunshine without this morning, in her it aroused no answering joy.
Ubiquitous as was the vivid surrounding life, its message passed her by.
Like a haze enveloping, dulling all things, was a haunting memory of
the past night and of what it had meant. As a traveller lost in this
fog, she lay staring about, indecisive which way to move, idly waiting
for light. Ordinarily action itself would have offered a solution of the
problem, would have served at least as a diversion; but this morning she
was strangely listless, strangely indifferent. There seemed to her no
adequate reason for rising, no definite object in doing anything more
than she was doing. In conformity she pulled the pillow higher and,
lifting herself wearily, dropped her chin into her palm and lay with
wide-open eyes staring aimlessly away.

Just how long she remained there so, she did not know. The doorway faced
south, and bit by bit the bar of sunlight that had entered therein began
moving to the left across the floor. Unconsciously, for the lack of
anythi