d feel that her endurance was nearly gone. As they had
come up to the snow line he had made her put on the light woollen shirt
he carried in his pack; and the big handkerchief, in which he had so
long wrapped the picture, he had fastened scarf-like about her head, so
she was not cold. But she looked pathetically childlike and out of
place, standing here beside him at the very top of the world, with the
valley so far down that the clumps of timber in it were like painted
splashes. It was a half mile down to the first bit of timber--a small
round patch of it in a narrow dip--and he pointed to it encouragingly.

"We'll camp there and have supper. I believe it is far enough down for a
fire. And if it is impossible for you to ride Tara--I'm going to carry
you!"

"You can't, _Sakewawin_" she sighed, letting her head touch his arm for
a moment. "It is more difficult to carry a load down a mountain than up.
I can walk."

Before he could stop her she had begun to descend. They went down
quickly--three times as quickly as they had climbed the other side--and
when, half an hour later, they reached the timber in the dip, he felt as
if his back were broken. The girl had persistently kept ahead of him,
and with a little cry of triumph she dropped down at the foot of the
first balsam they came to. The pupils of her eyes were big and dark as
she looked up at him, quivering with the strain of the last great
effort, and yet she tried to smile at him.

"You may carry me--some time--but not down a mountain," she said, and
laid her head wearily on the pillow of her arm, so that her face was
concealed from him. "And now--please get supper, _Sakewawin_."

He spread his blanket over her before he began searching for a camp
site. He noticed that Tara was already hunting for roots. Baree followed
close at his master's heels. Quite near, David found a streamlet that
trickled down from the snow line, and to a grassy plot on the edge of
this he dragged a quantity of dry wood and built a fire. Then he made a
thick couch of balsam boughs and went to his little companion. In the
half hour he had been at work she had fallen asleep. Utter exhaustion
was in the limpness of her slender body as he raised her gently in his
arms. The handkerchief had slipped back over her shoulder and she was
wonderfully sweet, and helpless, as she lay with her head on his breast.
She was still asleep when he placed her on the balsams, and it was dark
when he awakened h