ead twisted completely under him--or gone. It was
Henry's rifle he picked up. He searched for cartridges then. It was a
sickening task. He found nearly fifty of them on the three, and went out
with the pack and the rifle. He put the pack over his shoulders before
he returned to the rock, and paused only for a moment, when he rejoined
the Girl. With her hand in his he struck down into the valley.

"A great justice has overtaken them," he said, and that was all he told
her about the cabin, and she asked him no questions.

At the edge of the green meadows they stopped where a trickle of water
from the mountain tops had formed a deep pool. David followed this
trickle a little up the _coulee_ it had worn in the course of ages,
found a sheltered spot, and stripped himself. To the waist he was
covered with the stain and grime of battle. In the open pool Marge
bathed her face and arms, and then sat down to finish her toilet with
David's comb and brush. When he returned to her she was a radiant glory,
hidden to her waist in the gold and brown fires of her disentangled
hair. It was wonderful. He stood a step off and looked at her, his heart
filled with a wonderful joy, his lips silent. The thought surged upon
him now in an overmastering moment of exultation that she belonged to
him, not for to-day, or to-morrow, but for all time; that the mountains
had given her to him; that among the flowers and the wild things that
"great, good God," of whom Father Roland had spoken so often, had
created her for him; and that she had been waiting for him here, pure as
the wild violets under his feet. She did not see him for a space, and he
watched her as she ran out her glowing tresses under the strokes of his
brush.

And once--ages ago it seemed to him now--he had thought that another
woman was beautiful, and that another woman's glory was her hair! He
felt his heart singing. She had not been like this. No. Worlds separated
those two--that woman and this God-crowned little mountain flower who
had come into his heart like the breath of a new life, opening for him
new visions that reached even beyond the blue skies. And he wondered
that she should love him. She looked up suddenly and saw him standing
there. Love? Had he in all his life dreamed of the look that was in her
face now? It made his heart choke him. He held open his arms, silently,
as she rose to her feet, and she came to him in all that burnished glory
of her unbound hair; and he he