t to meet him when he had
gone to Marquette's for her, as she had sat across the table from him.
Her white arms flashed at him, her white throat and bare shoulders
shone through a blur of wandering fancies. Her red mouth was before
him through the long hours, luring him now, the lips blossoming into a
kiss; mocking him now; laughing with him, her cheeks dimpling as she
laughed; laughing at him, hard as carved coral. All night the grey
mystery of her eyes was upon him, their expression ever shifting, now
filled with promise like dawn skies, now vague with threats like grey
depths of ocean over hidden rocks.

When his will broke down in his utter weakness and he gave over trying
to sleep, he drew himself up against the wall which was head-board for
his bunk, lighted his candle and filled his pipe. Smoking slowly, the
candle light in his eyes, the objects of his dugout brought into sudden
harsh reality, he drove his mind away from the girl and sent it to the
gold which he had discovered in its hidden place in the mountains. Now
he could tell himself calmly that a few days of inactivity didn't
matter. A few more days and he would be himself again; and then he
might follow what path of life he chose, because he would be a rich
man. And then he grew drowsy and dozed, only to have Ygerne Bellaire
slip back into his befogged imaginings with her white shoulders, her
grey eyes and her red mouth.

When in the faint light before the dawn the sick yellow flame of the
second candle was dying out Drennen was making his way to Joe's. He
drank his coffee and then drove himself to eat two bowls of mush. His
face was so bloodless and drawn that Joe stared at him as at a ghost.
Each time that Drennen moved he felt a burning pain in his side as
though the wound were tearing open afresh.

The forenoon he spent in his dugout, dozing a little, but for the most
part staring moodily out of his open door at the muddy waters of the
Little MacLeod. He was aware, toward noon, of an unusual bustle and
stir in the Settlement. Men were arriving, almost in a steady stream,
a few on horseback, the major part on foot. There floated out to him
loud voices from Pere Marquette's store; they were drinking there. He
wondered idly what lay back of this human influx. He was too sick to
care greatly.

He had left word with Joe to send the boy with lunch at noon. The boy
came in shortly after one o'clock, explaining that there had been such
a ru