ut question, and the worry of
her search disappeared. It seemed certain that this omnipotence,
whatever it might be, was reading her wishes and acting with all its
power to fulfill them, so that in the end it was merely a question of
time before she should accomplish her mission--before she should meet
Pierre le Rouge face to face.

That night her sleep was deep, indeed, and she only wakened when the
slant light of the sun struck across her eyes. It was a bright day,
crisp and chill, and through the clear air the mountains seemed leaning
directly above her, and chief of all two peaks, almost exactly similar,
black monsters which ruled the range. Toward the gorge between them
the valley of the Old Crow aimed its course, and straight up that
diminishing canon she rode all day.

The broad, sandy bottom changed and contracted until the channel was
scarcely wide enough for the meager stream of water, and beside it she
picked her way along a narrow bridle-path with banks on either side,
which became with every mile more like cliffs, walling her in and
dooming her to a single destination.

It was evening before she came to the headwaters of the Old Crow, and
rode out into the gorge between the two mountains. The trail failed
her here. There was no semblance of a ravine to follow, except the
mighty gorge between the two peaks, and into the dark throat of this
pass she ventured, like some maiden of medieval romance riding through
a solemn gate with the guarding towers tall and black on either side.

The moment she was well started in it and the steep shadow of the
evening fell across her almost like night from the west, her heart grew
cold as the air of that lofty region. A sense of coming danger filled
her, like a little child when it passes from a lighted room into one
dark and still. Yet she kept on, holding a tight rein, throwing many a
fearful glance at the vast rocks which might have concealed an entire
army in every mile of their extent.

When she found the cabin she mistook it at first for merely another
rock of singular shape. It was at this shape that she stared, and
checked her horse, and not till then did she note the faint flicker of
a light no brighter or more distinct than the phosphorescent glow of
the eyes of a hunted beast.

All her impulse was to drive her spurs home and pass that place at a
racing gallop, but she checked the impulse sharply and began to reason.
In the first place, it was doubtl