eads of a rosary our words were strung together
on things commonplace enough; and fond hearts, as well as mystics, have
a key to unlock a world of meaning from meaningless words. Tufts of
poplars, wood islands on the prairie, skulking coyotes, that prowled to
the top of some earth mound and uttered their weird cries, mud-colored
badgers, hulking clumsily away to their treacherous holes, gophers, sly
fellows, propped on midget tails pointing fore-paws at us--these and
other common things stole the hours away. The sun, dipping close to the
sky-line, shone distorted through the warm haze like a huge blood
shield. Far ahead our scouts were pitching tents on ground well back
from the river to avoid the mosquitoes swarming above the water. It was
time to encamp for the night.

Those long June nights in the far north with fire glowing in the track
of a vanished sun and stillness brooding over infinite space--have a
glory, that is peculiarly their own. Only a sort of half-darkness lies
between the lingering sunset and the early sun-dawn. At nine o'clock the
sun-rim is still above the western prairie. At ten, one may read by
daylight, and, if the sky is clear, forget for another hour that night
has begun. After supper, Father Holland sat at a distance from the tents
with his back carefully turned towards us, a precaution on his part for
which I was not ungrateful. Frances Sutherland was throned on the boxes
of our quondam table, and I was reclining against saddle-blankets at her
feet.

"Oh! To be so forever," she exclaimed, gazing at the globe of solid gold
against the opal-green sky. "To have the light always clear, just
ahead, nothing between us and the light, peace all about, no care, no
weariness, just quiet and beauty like this forever."

"Like this forever! I ask nothing better," said I with great heartiness;
but neither her eyes nor her thoughts were for me. Would the eyes
looking so intently at the sinking sun, I wondered, condescend to look
at a spot against the sun. In desperation I meditated standing up. 'Tis
all very well to talk of storming the citadel of a closed heart, but
unless telepathic implements of war are perfected to the same extent as
modern armaments, permitting attack at long range, one must first get
within shooting distance. Apparently I was so far outside the defences,
even my design was unknown.

"I think," she began in low, hesitating words, so clear and thrilling,
they set my heart beating wil