nce. A cold fear smote
upon them all that death had intervened. Then Bear Cat, bringing his
eyes back from their fixity, bent abruptly; so abruptly that his
movement seemed a thing of violent threat.

"Don't ye hear?" he demanded in a strained whisper. "Speak whilst
thar's breath left. Say 'I will.' Say hit speedily!"

Recalled by that sharp challenge out of his sinking consciousness,
Jerry Henderson stirred and murmured faintly, "I will."

"Wilt thou have this-hyar man fer thy wedded husband ter serve, honor
an' obey----"

But before the interrogation came to its period Blossom Fulkerson broke
in with a prideful and willing avowal, "I will! I will!"

Turner Stacy felt icy moisture on his temples. His world seemed rocking
as he stood straight again with wooden immobility.

"I pronounces ye man an' wife."

Bear Cat turned away, walking with the stiff fashion of an automaton.
He could feel a stringent tightness like paralysis at his heart--and
his limbs seemed unresponsive and heavy. Then to his ears came, on the
morning breeze, that same call to arms that had stiffened Blossom into
a paralysis of fear. His cramped posture relaxed, and to himself he
said, "I reckon I hain't quite through yit!"

CHAPTER XVII

Blossom still knelt at the bedside with eyes of absorbed suffering and
fingers that strayed flutteringly toward the bandaged head.

Bear Cat, with his hand on the latch, lingered at the door, held there
by a spell which he seemed powerless to combat. His part here was
played out and to remain longer was an intrusion--yet he seemed unable
to go. The kneeling girl was not even conscious of his presence. For
her there was no world except that little one bounded by the sides and
the end of the bed upon which her lover lay dying. Her hands clasped
themselves at last and her face buried itself in the coverings. She was
praying.

Bear Cat saw the glimmer of the firelight on her hair and to him it was
all the lost gold of his dreams. He caught the sweet graciousness of
her lissome curves, and his own fingers clutched at the shirt which had
become stiff with dried blood. Once she had prayed for him, he
remembered--but that was before her real power of loving had burned to
its fulness. Now he stood there forgotten.

He did not blame her for that forgetfulness. It only demonstrated the
singleness of devotion of which she was capable; the dedication of
heart which he had once hoped would be lavished on hims