appalling sickness creeping
over him, and he raised himself slowly astride the grizzly's broad back.
The Girl picked up the bundle and rifle and Tara followed her through
the darkness. To David the beast's great back seemed a wonderfully safe
and comfortable place, and he leaned forward with his fingers clutched
deeply in the long hair of the ruff about the bear's bulking shoulders.

The Girl called back to him softly:

"You are all right, _Sakewawin_?"

"Yes, it is so comfortable that I feel I may fall asleep," he replied.

Out in the starlight she would have seen his drooping head, and his
words would have had a different meaning for her. He was fighting with
himself desperately, and in his heart was a great fear. He must be badly
hurt, he thought. There came to him a distorted but vivid vision of an
Indian hurt in the head, whom he and Father Roland had tried to save.
Without a surgeon it had been impossible. The Indian had died, and he
had had those same spells of sickness, the sickness that was creeping
over him again in spite of his efforts to fight it off. He had no very
clear notion of the movement of Tara's body under him, but he knew that
he was holding on grimly, and that every little while the Girl called
back to him, and he replied. Then came the time when he failed to
answer, and for a space the rocking motion under him ceased and the
Girl's voice was very near to him. Afterward motion resumed. It seemed
to him that he was travelling a great distance. Altogether too far
without a halt for sleep, or at least a rest. He was conscious of a
desire to voice protest--and all the time his fingers were clasped in
Tara'a mane in a sort of death grip.

In her breast Marge's heart was beating like a hunted thing, and over
and over again she sobbed out a broken prayer as she guided Tara and his
burden through the night. From the forest into the starlit open; from
the open into the thick gloom of forest again--into and out of starlight
and darkness, following that trail down the valley. She was no longer
thinking of the rock mountain, for it would be impossible now to climb
over the range into the other valley. She was heading for a cabin. An
old and abandoned cabin, where they could hide. She tried to tell David
about it, many days after they had begun that journey it seemed to him.

"Only a little longer, _Sakewawin_," she cried, with her arm about him
and her lips close to his bent head. "Only a little longer!