over him, looking down at him with her love for him softening her eyes.
He was going to get well--_if she did her part_. And her part was so
clearly indicated; to give him broth and to keep his fire going. She did
not hesitate and she was not afraid as she went down the cliffs. She
meant to be Mark King's mate; she meant to be worthy of being his mate.
He had not hesitated, he had not been afraid, when one man against five
he dropped down into the lowest cave. She, like him, was of pioneer
stock. She remembered that impressive monument to pioneer fortitude
which stands in the mountains where the highway runs by Donner Lake; as
in a vision she saw the little group that crowns the rugged pile. The
woman, the pioneer mother, holding her baby to her breast, pressing on
with her own mate, looking fearlessly ahead, daring what might come, not
lagging behind the man, rather ready to lead the way should he falter.
It was a glorious thing to have blood like that in her veins; it was the
finest thing in the world to be a woman like that woman.

She stepped down into the packed snow at the base of the cliffs. Here
she stood looking up and down the gorge for any sign of Benny or of the
Italian or of any other of Brodie's crowd who might be alive and astir.
But she saw no one; even Gratton's body, where it had been tumbled out
into the snow, was hidden. She heard the deep, quiet breathing of the
pines; the canon stream rushed and gurgled and babbled, shouting as it
leaped over fails, flinging spray which the moonlight and starlight made
over into jewels.

Gloria worked at her fuel-gathering, working in the snow until her hands
and feet were nearly frozen. But her heart was warm. Though she made
haste and was ever watchful and on the alert, her mind filled with such
thoughts as had never come trooping into it before. Fragmentary, they
were like bright bits spinning about a common centre. She looked up at
the wide sky and it was borne in upon her that the universe was mighty
and wonderful and infinite; she looked into her own heart and saw where
she had been small and silly and finite. She saw that the snow-covered
ridges stretching endlessly were like a concrete symbol of that infinity
which extended above and about her; that they were clothed in beauty.
She knew that when Mark King was made whole again and had forgiven her
and they stood together, hand locked in hand, she would have no fear any
more for his mountains, but rather a