iles rolled past them, a
racking weariness possessed her and numbed her mind. She began to wish
desperately for morning, but even morning might not bring an end to the
ride. That would be at the will of the outlaw beside her. Finally,
only one picture remained to her. It stabbed across the darkness of
her mind--the red hair and the keen eyes of Pierre.

The storm decreased as they went up the valley. Finally the wind fell
off to a pleasant breeze, and the clouds of the rain broke in the
center of the heavens and toppled west in great tumbling masses. In
half an hour's time the sky was clear, and a cold moon looked down on
the blue-black evergreens, shining faintly with the wet, and on the
dead black of the mountains.

For the first time in all that ride her companion spoke: "In an hour
the gray will begin in the east. Suppose we camp here, eat, get a bit
of sleep, and then start again?"

As if she had waited for permission, fighting against her weariness,
she now let down the bars of her will, and a tingling stupor swept over
her body and broke in hot, numbing waves on her brain.

"Whatever you say. I'm afraid I couldn't ride much further to-night."

"Look up at me."

She raised her head.

"No; you're all in. But you've made a game ride. I never dreamed
there was so much iron in you. We'll make our fire just inside the
trees and carry water up from the river, eh?"

A scanty growth of the evergreens walked over the hills and skirted
along the valley, leaving a broad, sandy waste in the center where the
river at times swelled with melted snow or sudden rains and rushed over
the lower valley in a broad, muddy flood.

At the edge of the forest he picketed the horses in a little open space
carpeted with wet, dead grass. It took him some time to find dry wood.
So he wrapped her in blankets and left her sitting on a saddle. As the
chill left her body she began to grow delightfully drowsy, and vaguely
she heard the crack of his hatchet. He had found a rotten stump and
was tearing off the wet outer bark to get at the dry wood within.

After that it was only a moment before a fire sputtered feebly and
smoked at her feet. She watched it, only half conscious, in her utter
weariness, and seeing dimly the hollow-eyed face of the man who stooped
above the blaze. Now it grew quickly, and increased to a sharp-pointed
pyramid of red flame. The bright sparks showered up, crackling and
snapping, and when she fo