d darkness seemed done now. Without realizing it she was
willingly turning her fears and troubles over to another--and to one
who, though she stubbornly refused to regard him as a friend, she well
knew was able to shoulder them. She heard the kicking and pawing of
the horse, then with new dismay, the low voices of two men; and next in
the terrifying darkness, more kicking, more suppressed expletives, more
heaving and pulling, and between lightning flashes, quieting words to
the horse. The two men had gotten the frightened beast to his feet.

Laramie groped back to Kate. He had to touch her with his hand to be
sure he had found her: "I'm taking you at your word," he said, above
the confusion of the storm.

"What do you mean?"

"That you're alone and don't know where you are."

"I am alone. I wish I might know where I am."

Both spoke under constraint: "It's more important to know how to get
home," he replied, ignoring the request in her words. "Your horse is
here for the night--that's pretty certain," he declared, as a sheet of
rain swept over the crater. "I've got a horse near by and we'll start
for where we can get more horses."

There was nothing Kate could say or do. She already had made up her
mind to submit in silence to what Laramie might suggest or impose. One
thing only she was resolved on; that whatever happened there should be
no appeal on her part.

His first thought was to get her out of the pit by the way she had
plunged in. A moment's reflection convinced him that such a precaution
was unnecessary. When he asked her to follow him he held her wet
gloved hand in his hand. "Look out for your footing till we get to the
horse," was his warning. "The way we're going, we should never make
but one slip. Take your time," he added, as she stepped cautiously
after him out into the drive of wind and rain. "It's only about twenty
steps."

In obeying orders she gave him nothing to complain of, but there was
little relaxing of the tension between the two. Every step she took on
her injured foot was torture, made keener by the uncertain footing.
More than once, even despite the dangers of her situation, she thought
she must cry out or faint in agony. The twenty steps along the steep
face of the canyon, pelted by rain, were like two hundred. Kate made
them without a whimper. Thence she followed him slowly between rocky
walls guarding the nearly level floor of the widening ledge, till they
reach