her woman's cry and
give no further heed to her plight.

The trail had begun to widen. The horse behind her again stumbled,
loosening a stone that rolled with crashes and echoings down to the
precipice below. She took advantage of the widening of the trail to urge
Dolly forward. Her impulse was to put spurs to the mare and run, to take
chances with loose stones, a narrowing trail, and the possibility of
Dolly's stumbling and breaking a leg; but discretion prompted the showing
of a brave front, the pleasantries of the road, with flight as the last
resource of desperation.

Suddenly gaining what seemed to be a plateau, she wheeled and waited the
coming of this possible friend or foe. The thudding of hoofs through the
inferno of darkness stopped, as the rider below considered the latest move
of the horseman above. They were so near that Judith could hear the
labored breathing of the sweating horse. The blackness of the night had
become a tangible thing. The towering mountains were one piece with the
gaping precipice, the trail, the scrub pines, the gauntlet on her hand.
The horse below resumed its stumbling gait. Judith crowded Dolly close to
the rocky wall. If the chance comrade of the wilderness should pass her by
in the darkness--God speed him!

"What the devil are you blocking the trail for?" sung out a voice from the
darkness. At sound of it Judith's heart stopped beating. The voice was
Peter Hamilton's.

XI

The Cabin In The Valley

And Judith, taken unawares by the unexpected turn of things, comforted as
a lost child that is found, told all her feeling for him in the way she
called his name. The easy tenderness of the man awoke; his senses swayed
to the magic of her voice, the mystery of the night, the shadow world in
which they two, 'twixt earth and sky, were alone. They rode without
speaking. Peter's hand sought hers, and all her woman's terror of the
desolation, her fear of the vague terrors of the dreadful night, spoke in
her answering pressure. It was as if the desert had given them to each
other as they groped through the silent darkness. In the great company of
earth, sky, silence, and this great-hearted woman, Peter grew conscious of
a real thrill. There were depths to life--vast, still depths; this woman's
unselfish love for him made him realize them. He felt his soul sweeping
out on the great tide of things. Farther and farther it swept; his patron
saint, cautio