flowing hair intoxicated him, and the gentle rise and fall of her
bosom drove all thought wild within him.

They stood for many minutes; till at last the still night was stirred by
the rustling herald of the coming storm. The long-drawn-out sigh of the
wind, so sad, so weird in the darkness of night would have passed
unheeded by the man, but Aim-sa was alert, and she freed herself from
his embrace.

"At sunrise," she said. "Now--sleep." And she made a sign as of laying
her head upon a pillow.

Ralph stood irresolute. Suddenly Aim-sa started. Her whole bearing
changed. A swift, startled gaze shot from beneath her long, curling
lashes in the direction of the distant hills. A tiny glimmer of light
had caught her attention and she stepped back on the instant and passed
into the hut, closing the door softly but quickly behind her. And when
she had disappeared Ralph stood as one dazed.

The significance of Aim-sa's abrupt departure was lost upon him. For him
there was nothing unusual in her movements. She had been there, he had
held her in his arms, he had kissed her soft lips. He had tasted of
love, and the mad passion had upset his thoughtful nature. His mind and
his feelings were in a whirl and he thrilled with a delicious joy. His
thoughts were so vivid that all sense of that which was about him, all
caution, was obscured by them. At that moment there was but one thing
that mattered to him,--Aim-sa's love. All else was as nothing.

So it came that the faint light on the distant hills burned steadily;
and he saw it not. So it came that a shadowy figure moved about at the
forest edge below him; and he saw it not. So it came that the light
breath from the mountain-top was repeated only more fiercely; and he
heeded it not. In those moments he was living within himself; his
thoughts were his world, and those thoughts were of the woman he had
kissed and held in his arms.

Nothing gave him warning of the things which were doing about him. He
saw no tribulation in the sea upon which he had embarked. He loved; that
was all he knew. Presently like a sleep-walker he turned and moved
around towards the deeper shadow of the lean-to. Then, when he neared
the door of the shed in which his brother was, he seemed to partially
awake to his surroundings. He knew that he must regain his bed without
disturbing Nick. With this awakening he pulled himself together.
To-morrow at sunrise he and the squaw were to go away, and long he lay
aw