ve him lie in a faint for
an hour than have you speak so about him."

Without noticing her, he threw another jet of water and David stirred,
drew a deep breath and opened his eyes. They touched the sky, the
wagon, the nearby sage, and then Susan's face. There they rested,
recognition slowly suffusing them.

"What happened?" he said in a husky voice.

"Fainted, that was all," said Courant.

David closed his eyes.

"Oh, yes, I remember now."

Susan bent over him.

"You frightened me so!"

"I'm sorry, Missy, but it made me sick--the leg and those awful cries."

Courant emptied the dipper on the ground.

"I'll see if they've got any whisky. You'll have to get your grit up,
David, for the rest of the trail," and he left them.

A half hour later the cry of "Roll out" sounded, and the Mormon camp
broke. The rattling of chains and ox yokes, and the cursing of men
ruptured the stillness that had gathered round the moment of death.
Life was a matter of more immediate importance. Tents were struck, the
pots and pans thrown into the wagons, the children collected, the stock
driven in. With ponderous strain and movement the great train formed
and took the road. As it drew away the circle of its bivouac showed in
trampled sage and grass bitten to the roots. In the clearing where the
boy had lain was the earth of a new-made grave, a piece of wood thrust
in at the head, the mound covered with stones gathered by the elder's
young wife. The mountain tragedy was over.

By the fire that evening Zavier employed himself scraping the dust from
a buffalo skull. He wiped the frontal bone clean and white, and when
asked why he was expending so much care on a useless relic, shrugged
his shoulders and laughed. Then he explained with a jerk of his head
in the direction of the vanished Mormons that they used buffalo skulls
to write their letters on. In the great emigration of the year before
their route was marked by the skulls set up in prominent places and
bearing messages for the trains behind.

"And are you going to write a letter on that one?" Susan asked.

"No; I do not write English good, and French very bad. But maybe some
one else will use it," and he laughed boyishly and laid the skull by
the fire.

In the depth of the night Susan was wakened by a hand on her shoulder
that shook her from a dreamless sleep. She started up with a cry and
felt another hand, small and cold on her mouth, and heard a whispering