been too strenuous, the depleted reservoir had filled slowly, and now
the demands of unremitting toil were draining it of what was left. He
said nothing of this, but thought much in his feverish nights, and in
the long afternoons when his knees felt weak against the horse's sides.
As the silence of each member of the little train was a veil over
secret trouble, his had hidden the darkest, the most sinister.

Susan, sitting beside him, watching him with an anxious eye, noted the
languor of his long, dry hands, the network of lines, etched deep on
the loose skin of his cheeks. Of late she had been shut in with her
own preoccupations, but never too close for the old love and the old
habit to force a way through. She had seen a lessening of energy and
spirit, asked about it, and received the accustomed answers that came
with the quick, brisk cheeriness that now had to be whipped up. She
had never seen his dauntless belief in life shaken. Faith and a
debonair courage were his message. They were still there, but the
effort of the unbroken spirit to maintain them against the body's
weakness was suddenly revealed to her and the pathos of it caught at
her throat. She leaned forward and passed her hand over his hair, her
eyes on his face in a long gaze of almost solemn tenderness.

"You're worn out," she said.

"Not a bit of it," he answered stoutly. "You're the most
uncomplimentary person I know. I was just thinking what a hardy
pioneer I'd become, and that's the way you dash me to the ground."

She looked at the silvery meshes through which her fingers were laced.

"It's quite white and there were lots of brown hairs left when we
started."

"That's the Emigrant Trail," he smothered a sigh, and his trouble found
words: "It's not for old men, Missy."

"Old!" scornfully; "you're fifty-three. That's only thirty-two years
older than I am. When I'm fifty-three you'll be eighty-five. Then
we'll begin to talk about your being old."

"My little Susan fifty-three!" He moved his head so that he could
command her face and dwell upon its blended bloom of olive and clear
rose, "With wrinkles here and here," an indicating finger helped him,
"and gray hairs all round here, and thick eyebrows, and--" he dropped
the hand and his smile softened to reminiscence, "It was only yesterday
you were a baby, a little, fat, crowing thing all creases and dimples.
Your mother and I used to think everything about you so wonderful that
w