madness of unaccustomed pain. With a
passionate gesture David threw the whip down.

Susan saw that it was not accidental. She gave a sound of angry
astonishment and stood up in the crotch of the tree.

"David!" she screamed, but he did not hear, and then louder: "Daddy
John, quick, the whip, he's dropped it."

The old man came running round the back of the wagon, quick and eager
as a gnome. He snatched up the whip and let the lash curl outward with
a hissing rush. It flashed like the flickering dart of a snake's
tongue, struck, and the horses sprang forward. It curled again, hung
suspended for the fraction of a moment, then licked along the sweating
flanks, and horses and mules, bowed in a supreme effort, wrenched the
wagon upward. Susan slid from her perch, feeling a sudden apathy, not
only as from a tension snapped, but as the result of a backwash of
disillusion. David was no longer the proud conqueror, the driver of
man and brute. The tide of pride had ebbed.

Later, when the camp was pitched and she was building the fire, he came
to offer her some wood which was scarce on this side of the river. He
knelt to help her, and, his face close to hers, she said in a low voice:

"Why did you throw the whip down?"

He reddened consciously and looked quickly at her, a look that was
apprehensive as if ready to meet an accusation.

"I saw you do it," she said, expecting a denial.

"Yes, I did it," he answered. "I wasn't going to say I didn't."

"Why did you?" she repeated.

"I can't beat a dumb brute when it's doing its best," he said, looking
away from her, shy and ashamed.

"But the wagon would have gone down to the bottom of the hill. It was
going."

"What would that have mattered? We could have taken some of the things
out and carried them up afterwards. When a horse does his best for
you, what's the sense of beating the life out of him when the load's
too heavy. I can't do that."

"Was that why you threw it down?"

He nodded.

"You'd rather have carried the things up?"

"Yes."

She laid the sticks one on the other without replying and he said with
a touch of pleading in his tone:

"You understand that, don't you?"

She answered quickly:

"Oh, of course, perfectly."

But nevertheless she did not quite. Daddy John's action was the one
she really did understand, and she even understood why Leff swore so
violently.

CHAPTER VIII

It was Sunday again and they lay encamped ne