end and couldn't move much farther.

But the others argued him down. They all agreed there was something in
the sun maybe, or the mellow warmth of the air, or the richness of
wooded slope and plain, that made them feel they had found a place
where they could stay, not for a few days' rest, but forever. Susan
had hit upon the word "homelike," the spot on earth that seemed to you
the one best fitted for a home.

The talk swung back to days on the trail and finally brought up on
David. They rehearsed the tragic story, conned over the details that
had begun to form into narrative sequence as in the time-worn lay of a
minstrel. Bella and Glen asked all the old questions that had once
been asked by Susan and Daddy John, and heard the same answers, leaning
to catch them while the firelight played on the strained attention of
their faces. With the night pressing close around them, and the
melancholy, sea-like song sweeping low from the forest, a chill crept
upon them, and their lost comrade became invested with the unreality of
a spirit. Dead in that bleak and God-forgotten land, or captive in
some Indian stronghold, he loomed a tragic phantom remote from them and
their homely interests like a historical figure round which legend has
begun to accumulate.

The awed silence that had fallen was broken by Courant rising and
walking away toward the diggings. This brought their somber pondering
to an end. Bella and Glen picked up the sleeping children and went to
their tent, and Susan, peering beyond the light, saw her man sitting on
a stone, dark against the broken silver of the stream. She stole down
to him and laid her hand on his shoulder. He started as if her touch
scared him, then saw who it was and turned away with a gruff murmur.
The sound was not encouraging, but the wife, already so completely part
of him that his moods were communicated to her through the hidden
subways of instinct, understood that he was in some unconfessed trouble.

"What's the matter, Low?" she asked, bending to see his face.

He turned it toward her, met the penetrating inquiry of her look, and
realized his dependence on her, feeling his weakness but not caring
just then that he should be weak.

"Nothing," he answered. "Why do they harp so on David?"

"Don't you like them to?" she asked in some surprise.

He took a splinter from the stone and threw it into the water, a small
silvery disturbance marking its fall.

"There's nothing