d, fierce, terrible, perhaps, but big--big with elemental
force.

But one day, while out walking alone, before she realized it she had
gone a long way down a dim trail winding among the rocks. It was the
middle of a summer afternoon, and all about her were shadows of the
crags crossing the sunlit patches. The quiet was undisturbed. She went
on and on, not blind to the fact that she was perhaps going too far from
camp, but risking it because she was sure of her way back, and enjoying
the wild, craggy recesses that were new to her. Finally she came out
upon a bank that broke abruptly into a beautiful little glade. Here she
sat down to rest before undertaking the return trip.

Suddenly Russ, the keener of the stag-hounds, raised his head and
growled. Madeline feared he might have scented a mountain-lion or
wildcat. She quieted him and carefully looked around. To each side was
an irregular line of massive blocks of stone that had weathered from
the crags. The little glade was open and grassy, with here a pine-tree,
there a boulder. The outlet seemed to go down into a wilderness of
canyons and ridges. Looking in this direction, Madeline saw the slight,
dark figure of a woman coming stealthily along under the pines. Madeline
was amazed, then a little frightened, for that stealthy walk from tree
to tree was suggestive of secrecy, if nothing worse.

Presently the woman was joined by a tall man who carried a package,
which he gave to her. They came on up the glade and appeared to be
talking earnestly. In another moment Madeline recognized Stewart. She
had no greater feeling of surprise than had at first been hers. But for
the next moment she scarcely thought at all--merely watched the couple
approaching. In a flash came back her former curiosity as to Stewart's
strange absences from camp, and then with the return of her doubt of him
the recognition of the woman. The small, dark head, the brown face,
the big eyes--Madeline now saw distinctly--belonged to the Mexican girl
Bonita. Stewart had met her there. This was the secret of his lonely
trips, taken ever since he had come to work for Madeline. This secluded
glade was a rendezvous. He had her hidden there.

Quietly Madeline arose, with a gesture to the dogs, and went back along
the trail toward camp. Succeeding her surprise was a feeling of sorrow
that Stewart's regeneration had not been complete. Sorrow gave place
to insufferable distrust that while she had been romancing ab