nd
spoon, constituted all in the way of cooking utensils. With jealous eye
he judged the weight, bulk, and worth of every other article, whether it
be a tin of fruit or a slab of bacon. Those delicacies, which his love
for Gloria had prompted him to bring with them, he now placed at one
side, to be left behind. Bacon, to the last small scrap and fat-lined
rind, coffee, to the once-boiled dregs in the coffee-pot, he packed
carefully. Then, his roll made and drawn tight, he took up the discarded
articles and hid them under some loose dirt in a remote, black corner of
the cave. Ten minutes later he had gotten first his pack, then Gloria,
safely down the cliffs, and they started. Head down, silent, like two
grotesque automatons, they trudged on. They crossed on the fallen cedar,
they climbed out of the gorge on the far side, they fought their way on.

Several times King turned. But she soon saw it was not to look at her;
his glance passed down the long canon toward the spot where they had
seen the smudge of smoke. She had come near forgetting that other men
were near; she had no interest in them now. King had brought her here;
King must take her safely back to the world which she had forsaken so
stupidly. The obligation was plainly his; the power seemed his no less.

As Gloria fought her way along she was upborne at every step by the
expectation of coming presently to their horse, of being placed in the
saddle, and of having nothing to do from then on but hold to the pommel
and have King lead her on to an ultimate safety. The progress would be
long and the way little less than an adventure in hell to her; but at
least hers would have become a slightly more passive part and she would
be moving on toward the luxury of four walls and a maid and warm
comforts. So when they came to the spot where King had tethered his
horse, and there was no horse there, Gloria looked her blank, stupefied
bewilderment, and then simply collapsed. She dropped down in the snow,
her face in her hands, too weary and heartbroken to sob aloud. King
stared about him with an almost equal consternation.

Leaving Gloria where she lay inert in the snow, King put down rifle and
pack and hurried down into the hollow where he had tethered his horse.
Five minutes of reading the signs in the snow told him the story. He had
been right; his venture from the beginning had been loaded to the guards
with bad luck. There was the end of the broken tie-rope; there the