down
a stream so wide that in Europe it would have been called a river. The
glare from the burning cabin faded, the flaming mass itself shrunk until
it looked a burning bush, then dwindled to a star. The noise of the
struggle upon the mount was with them longer, but at length it, too,
died away.

"Which will conquer?" said Patricia at last, from where she crouched at
the feet of Landless, who stood erect, poling.

"The Ricahecrians were the stronger," he answered. "But they may be so
handled that they will not come at us again. That must be our hope."

There followed a long silence, broken by Patricia.

"The baby," she said in a quivering voice, "the poor, pretty, innocent
little thing!"

"It is well with it," said Landless. "It is spared all toil and
suffering. It is better as it is."

"The man and woman went together," said Patricia, still with the sob in
her voice. "They would have chosen it so, I think. But the poor
Indian--"

"He was my friend," said Landless slowly, "and I brought him death."

"It is I that brought him death!" cried Patricia, tossing up her arms.
"I that shall bring you death!"

Her voice rose into a cry that echoed drearily from the hills about
them, and she beat her hands against the raft with a sudden passion.

"You would bring me no unwelcome gift," said Landless steadily,
"provided only that the time when I could serve you with my life were
past."

She did not answer, and they floated on in silence down the little
river, between banks lined with dwarf willows and sighing reeds. With
the dawn they came to rapids through which they could not pilot their
frail craft. Leaving the water, they turned their faces towards the
rising sun, and pursued their journey through the forest that seemed to
stretch to the end of the world.

CHAPTER XXXIII

THE FALL OF THE LEAF

Days passed, and the forest put on a beauty, austere, yet fantastic,
bizarre. Above it hung a pale blue sky; within it, a perpetual, pale
blue haze, through which blazed the scarlet and gold of the trees--great
bonfires which did not warm, flaming pyres which were never consumed.
Morning and evening a shroud of chill, white mist fell upon them, or
they would have mocked the sunrise and the sunset. Along the summit of
low hills ran a comb of fire--the scarlet of the sumach, leaf and berry;
underfoot were crimson vines like trails and splashes of blood; into the
streams from which the wanderers stooped to drink,