p and we can make him comfortable and
maybe find a doctor."

Her face, lifted to him, was like a transparent medium through which
anxiety and hope that was almost pain, shone. She hung on his words
and breathed back quick agreement. It would have been the same if he
had suggested the impossible, if the angel of the Lord had appeared and
barred the way with a flaming sword.

"Of course they can go all night. They must. We'll walk and ride by
turns. That'll lighten the wagon. I'll go and get my horse," and she
was out and gone to the back of the train where David rode at the head
of the pack animals.

The night was of a clear blue darkness, suffused with the misty light
of stars. Looking back, Courant could see her upright slenderness
topping the horse's black shape. When the road lay pale and unshaded
behind her he could decipher the curves of her head and shoulders.
Then he turned to the trail in front, and her face, as it had been when
he first saw her and as it was now, came back to his memory. Once,
toward midnight, he drew up till they reached him, her horse's muzzle
nosing soft against his pony's flank. He could see the gleam of her
eyes, fastened on him, wide and anxious.

"Get into the wagon and ride," he commanded.

"Why? He's no worse! He's sleeping."

"I was thinking of you. This is too hard for you. It'll wear you out."

"Oh, I'm all right," she said with a slight movement of impatience.
"Don't worry about me. Go on."

He returned to his post and she paced slowly on, keeping level with the
wheels. It was very still, only the creaking of the wagon and the hoof
beats on the dust. She kept her eyes on his receding shape, watched it
disappear in dark turns, then emerge into faintly illumined stretches.
It moved steadily, without quickening of gait, a lonely shadow that
they followed through the unknown to hope. Her glance hung to it, her
ear strained for the thud of his pony's feet, sight and sound of him
came to her like a promise of help. He was the one strong human thing
in this place of remote skies and dumb unfeeling earth.

It was late afternoon when the Fort came in sight. A flicker of
animation burst up in them as they saw the square of its long, low
walls, crowning an eminence above the stream. The bottom lay wide at
its feet, the river slipping bright through green meadows sprinkled
with an army of cattle. In a vast, irregular circle, a wheel of life
with the fort as its