in that secret wound.

She found no solace in Marylyn's friends of the calico covers. Her
thoughts were too tempestuous for that. They were like milling cattle.
Around and around they tore, mingling and warring, but stilling in the
end to follow the only course--self-denial. Once so rebellious, she was
growing meek at last--meek and full of contrition. She was coming to
dwell more too, on the lessons that the evangelist had taught her: She
was coming to think of leaning where David Bond had leaned--she, who had
always been a prop.

There was the old terror that had stalked beside her down to her
mother's death. She had fought her way with it, and the conflict had
given her strength. There was the jealousy that had smirched her
sister-love. She had fought it, too, and bitterly, scorning it because
she knew it for a hateful inheritance. Now was come a third misery, and
the worst. She saw herself as a traitor. This was not mere reproach. It
was the torture of a stricken conscience.

Her face grew thin, her hand unsteady, her eyes wore a hunted look. At
night, hers were the scalding tears that dampened the pillow.

And so the days went by. Whatever pangs of remorse, whatever longing she
endured, she remained faithful to the resolution that she would not give
way to temptation again. But every night brought the lonely watcher to
the swale.

CHAPTER XXXIII

THE END OF A DREAM

The dark of the moon was come.

All that day the sun had baked, and the steady south blow had been like
the draught of an oven. As evening came, brushing a glory of red from
the sky, the wind quickened, instead of lulling, and fetched up clouds
that rested on the ridge-tops and roofed the wide valley. Through these
not a star showed. But now and then, for an instant, the post sprang
into sight out of the blackness to the weird play of the heat-lightning.

In the stockade there was perfect quiet--a quiet tense with excitement.
Secrecy forbade any strong-heart songs and dances. Caution advised
against mosquito fires. And suspense did away with drumming, shrill
laughter, and feast-shout. The aged men, the women, and the children
kept close within their lodges, where they whispered and nodded, nose to
nose. The warriors stayed outside, preserving their calm with
kinnikinick. In the dark, the open bowls of their scattered pipes were
so many ruddy glow-worms.

From the pitchy shelter of the shingle roof, Squaw Charley looked out.
He sat o