e, not so much for Bella as for the welfare
of the train.

They had been at the fort now for four days and were ready to move on.
The wagons were repaired, the mules and horses shod, and Bella was
mending, though still unable to walk. The doctor had promised to keep
beside the McMurdos till she was well, then his company would forge
ahead.

In the heat of the afternoon, comfortable in a rim of shade in the
courtyard, the men were arranging for the start the next morning. The
sun beat fiercely on the square opening roofed by the blue of the sky
and cut by the black shadow of walls. In the cooling shade the motley
company lay sprawling on the ground or propped against the doors of the
store rooms. The open space was brilliant with the blankets of
Indians, the bare limbs of brown children, and the bright serapes of
the Mexicans, who were too lazy to move out of the sun. In a corner
the squaws played a game with polished cherry stones which they tossed
in a shallow, saucerlike basket and let drop on the ground.

Susan, half asleep on a buffalo skin, watched them idly. The game
reminded her of the jack-stones of her childhood. Then her eye slanted
to where Lucy stood by the gate talking with a trapper called Zavier
Leroux. The sun made Lucy's splendid hair shine like a flaming nimbus,
and the dark men of the mountains and the plain watched her with
immovable looks. She was laughing, her head drooped sideways. Above
the collar of her blouse a strip of neck, untouched by tan, showed in a
milk-white band. Conscious of the admiring observation, she
instinctively relaxed her muscles into lines of flowing grace, and
lowered her eyes till her lashes shone in golden points against her
freckled cheeks. With entire innocence she spread her little lure,
following an elemental instinct, that, in the normal surroundings of
her present life, released from artificial restraints, was growing
stronger.

Her companion was a voyageur, a half-breed, with coarse black hair
hanging from a scarlet handkerchief bound smooth over his head. He was
of a sinewy, muscular build, his coppery skin, hard black eyes, and
high cheek bones showing the blood of his mother, a Crow squaw. His
father, long forgotten in the obscurity of mountain history, had
evidently bequeathed him the French Canadian's good-humored gayety.
Zavier was a light-hearted and merry fellow, and where he came laughter
sprang up. He spoke English well, and could sing