. You must
have loved me a great deal to risk all that for me."

"Yes, a great deal, my child," he answered.

Why did that dizziness persist in his head, he wondered? For a moment he
felt as if he were falling.

"A very great deal," he added, trying to walk steadily at her side, his
own voice sounding unreal and at a great distance from him. "You see--my
child--I didn't have anything to love but your picture...."

What a fool he was to try and make himself heard above the roaring in
his head! His words seemed to him whispers coming across a great space.
And the bundle on his shoulders was like a crushing weight bearing him
down! The voice at his side was growing fainter. It was saying things
which afterward he could not remember, but he knew that it was talking
about the woman he had said was her mother, and that he was answering it
while weights of lead were dragging at his feet. Then suddenly, he had
stepped over the edge of the world and was floating in that vast, black
chaos again. The voice did not leave him. He could hear it sobbing,
entreating him, urging him to do something which he could not
understand; and when at last he did begin to comprehend it he knew also
that he was no longer walking with weights at his feet and a burden on
his shoulders, but was on the ground. His head was on her breast, and
she was no longer speaking to him, but was crying like a child with a
heart utterly broken. The deathly sickness was gone as quickly as it had
stricken him, and he struggled upward, with her arms helping him.

"You are hurt--hurt--" he heard her moaning. "If I can only get you on
Tara, _Sakewawin_, on Tara's back--there--a step...." and he knew that
was what she had been saying over and over again, urging him to help
himself if he could, so that she could get him to Tara. He reached out
his hand and buried it in the thick hair of the grizzly, and he tried to
speak laughingly so that she would not know his fears.

"One is often dizzy--like that--after a blow," he said, "I guess--I can
walk now."

"No, no, you must ride Tara," she insisted. "You are hurt--and you must
ride Tara, _Sakewawin_. You must!"

She was lifting at his arms with all her strength, her breath hot and
panting in his face, and Tara stood without moving a muscle of his giant
body, as if he, too, were urging upon him in this dumb manner the
necessity of obeying his mistress. Even then David would have
remonstrated but he felt once more that