ed his neck and blessed him for being so "trail
wise." He, too, was doing the hardest thing, and doing it faithfully.

She fell again into the rhythm of her battle cry--"The hardest
thing--the hardest thing!"

And yet it was not hard. She was so near to it now that she could afford
the luxury of this admission. It required only a sense of justice, of
moral symmetry. She had taken a life--two, doubtless--and by the law she
must pay. But no debtor could have had a willinger spirit. And she would
not be paying too much. She recalled certain homely words of an old man
whose life she had watched out, a man whose worn, seamed face showed his
right to speak.

"Experience, lady, a dear thing sometimes--yes--but never too dear. It
is worth always just what we pay for it. It is had at slightest cost,
high or low. No other thing is like it thus. All else of the world may
cheat us in their price, but not experience. Our fee shall vary as we
are quick to learn, but the good God teaches us what we must know at
flat cost, as says the merchant, with never the penny of profit. This it
saves much to know--much sorrowing, much whining. It would make us
wise--so!"

"So!" She echoed his rich guttural imitatively and laughed as she drew
in a deep breath of the damp air. She was numb with the cold now, and
laughed at foolish life for registering so petty a discomfort at such a
moment. The humor of it came home to her--that she should sensually feel
the cold.

Another span of hours the little horse strode on at his quick step,
valiantly lifting her up steep ascents, or descending the sides of
ravines with devoted sureness of foot, treading narrow ways where she
could feel that he hugged the bush-lined bank, and knew that a fall lay
the other side.

"The hardest thing--the hardest thing!" Again she muttered it, beating
at her purpose. And again, that mental, passionless query lifted its
head. Strike it down as she would, its cool, curious eyes were always on
her, not denying, not disputing, only questioning, calmly but
implacably, until her soul seemed to writhe in loyalty to her motives,
holding them sacred even from questioning.

"The hardest thing"--but her brain rang with the relentless
question--"are you doing it because it is the hardest thing or because
you want to do it?"

"I am doing it because I want to do the hardest thing."

"A quibble!"

She set her lips, shut her eyes, even to the darkness, and tried to
deafen her ea