f Heaven; and for a man in hiding, a man who
lived, yet whose name was carved above a grave, it was a very target for
untoward accident. Some trader or trapper down in the forest might look
up and behold the misshapen figure black and bold, against the sky.
Yet there was never so mighty a Hugh as when he stood there defiant and
alone. Now he wanted Sylvie to sense that tragic magnificence.

So they went out, Hugh's arm about her, as strange a pair of lovers as
ever tempted the spring--the great, scarred, uncouth, gray cripple and
the slim, unseeing girl, groping and clinging, absolutely shut off from
any contact with reality as long as this man should interpret creation
for her. Sylvie turned back to wave at Pete, whom they had left standing
in the doorway.

"I'll be hunting for you if you stay out late," he called--to which Hugh
shouted back: "You hunting for us! Don't fancy I can't take care of this
child, myself."

"Both of them blind!" Pete muttered to himself in answer.

They were moving rather slowly across the rough, sagebrush-covered flat,
and presently Hugh led Sylvie into the fragrant silence of the forest
trail. To her it was all scent and sound. Hugh whispered to her what
this drumming meant and that chattering and that sudden rattle almost
under their feet.

They had to go slowly, Sylvie touching the trees here and there, along
her side of the trail. He lifted her over logs and fallen trees, and
sometimes, before he set her down, he kissed her. Then Sylvie would turn
her head shyly, and he would laugh. Thus they made slow, sweet progress.

"I see more in the woods with your eyes than I ever could with my own,"
she told him.

"I have eyes for us both," he answered. "That's why God gave me the eyes
I have, because He knew the use I'd be making of them."

"Is this the trail Pete follows to the trading-station?" she asked. "I
wish you could take me there, Hugh, or--would you let him take me?"

He tightened his arm. "I can't bear to have you out of my sight," he
answered.

She sighed. "It seems so queer that they haven't tried to find me. Do
you suppose they think that I'm dead? Did Pete mail my letter to Miss
Foby, I wonder?"

"What does Miss Foby matter?" he asked jealously. "What does anything
matter to you but--me? Here we leave Pete's trail and I take you
straight up the mountain, dear one. We'll rest now and then; when we get
to the rocky place just below the top, I'll carry you. Are you happy