es; and he shunned eyes in this hour.
"God! to think I cared so much," he whispered. "What has happened?" With
time relief came to limbs, to labored breast and lungs, but not to mind.
In doubt that would not die, he looked at himself. The leanness of arms,
the flat chest, the hollows were gone. He did not recognize his
own body. He breathed to the depths of his lungs. No pain--only
exhilaration! He pounded his chest--no pain! He dug his trembling
fingers into the firm flesh over the apex of his right lung--the place
of his torture--no pain!

"I wanted to live!" he cried. He buried his face in the fragrant
juniper; he rolled on the soft brown mat of earth and hugged it close;
he cooled his hot cheeks in the primrose clusters. He opened his eyes
to new bright green of cedar, to sky of a richer blue, to a desert,
strange, beckoning, enthralling as life itself. He counted backward a
month, two months, and marvelled at the swiftness of time. He counted
time forward, he looked into the future, and all was beautiful--long
days, long hunts, long rides, service to his friend, freedom on the wild
steppes, blue-white dawns upon the eastern crags, red-gold sunsets over
the lilac mountains of the desert. He saw himself in triumphant health
and strength, earning day by day the spirit of this wilderness, coming
to fight for it, to live for it, and in far-off time, when he had won
his victory, to die for it.

Suddenly his mind was illumined. The lofty plateau with its healing
breath of sage and juniper had given back strength to him; the silence
and solitude and strife of his surroundings had called to something
deep within him; but it was Mescal who made this wild life sweet and
significant. It was Mescal, the embodiment of the desert spirit. Like a
man facing a great light Hare divined his love. Through all the days on
the plateau, living with her the natural free life of Indians, close to
the earth, his unconscious love had ripened. He understood now her charm
for him; he knew now the lure of her wonderful eyes, flashing fire,
desert-trained, like the falcon eyes of her Indian grandfather. The
knowledge of what she had become to him dawned with a mounting desire
that thrilled all his blood.

Twilight had enfolded the plateau when Hare traced his way back to camp.
Mescal was not there. His supper awaited him; Piute hummed a song; the
peon sat grimacing at the fire. Hare told them to eat, and moved away
toward the rim.

Mescal wa