voice at her ear,

"Hush. Don't make a sound. It's Lucy."

She gripped at the figure, felt the clasp of trembling arms, and a
cheek chill with the night cold, against her own.

"Lucy," she gasped, "what's the matter?"

"I want to speak to you. Be quiet."

"Has anything happened? Is some one sick?"

"No. It's not that. I'm going."

"Going? Going where--" She was not yet fully awake, filaments of
sleep clouded her clearness.

"Into the mountains with Zavier."

The filaments were brushed away in a rough sweep. But her brain
refused to accept the message. In the dark, she clutched at the body
against her, felt the beat of pulses distinct through the clothing, the
trembling of the hands going down through her flesh and muscle to her
heart.

"What do you mean? Where?"

"I don't know, into the mountains somewhere."

"With Zavier? Why?"

"Because he wants me to and I must."

"But-- Oh, Lucy--" she struggled from the blanket to her knees--"Oh,
Lucy!"

Her voice rose high and the hand felt for her mouth. She caught it and
held it off, her head bent back straining her eyes for the face above
her.

"Running away with him?"

"Yes. I couldn't go without telling you. I had to say good-by."

"Going with him forever, not coming back?"

"No, never!"

"But where--where to?"

"I don't know. In the mountains somewhere. There's a trail here he
knows. It branches off to the north and goes up to the places where
they get the skins."

"I don't believe you."

"It's true. The horses are waiting outside."

"Lucy, you've gone crazy. Don't--don't"-- She clung to the hand she
held, grasped upward at the arm. Both were cold and resistant. Her
pleading struck back from the hardness of the mind made up, the
irrevocable resolution.

"But he's not your husband."

Even at this moment, keyed to an act of lawlessness that in the
sheltered past would have been as impossible as murder, the great
tradition held fast. Lucy's answer came with a sudden flare of shocked
repudiation:

"He will be. There are priests and missionaries up there among the
Indians. The first one we meet will marry us. It's all right. He
loves me and he's promised."

Nothing of her wild courage came to the other girl, no echo of the call
of life and passion. It was a dark and dreadful fate, and Susan
strained her closer as if to hold her back from it.

"It's been fixed for two days. We had to wait till we got here and