to see
nothing and only to grip him tighter, if that were possible. Neale began
to imagine that he had been too hopeful. Her body was a dead weight and
cold. Those two glimpses he had of her opened eyes hurt him. What should
he do when she did come to herself? She would be frantic with horror and
grief and he would be helpless. In a case like hers it might have been
better if she had been killed.

The last mile to Slingerland's lay through a beautiful green valley with
steep sides almost like a canon--trees everywhere, and a swift, clear
brook running over a bed of smooth rock. The trail led along this brook
up to where the valley boxed and the water boiled out of a great spring
in a green glade overhung by bushy banks and gray rocks above. A rude
cabin with a red-stone chimney and clay-chinked cracks between the logs,
stuffed to bursting with furs and pelts and horns and traps, marked the
home of the trapper.

"Wal, we're hyar," sung out Slingerland, and in the cheery tones there
was something which told that the place was indeed home to him.

"Shore is a likely-lookin' camp," drawled Red, throwing his bridle.
"Been heah a long time, thet cabin."

"Me an' my pard was the first white men in these hyar hills," replied
Slingerland. "He's gone now." Then he turned to Neale. "Son, you must
be tired. Thet was a ways to carry a girl nigh onto dead.... Look how
white! Hand her down to me."

The girl's hands slipped nervelessly and limply from their hold upon
Neale. Slingerland laid her on the grass in a shady spot. The three men
gazed down upon her, all sober, earnest, doubtful.

"I reckon we can't do nothin' but wait," said the trapper.

Red King shook his head as if the problem were beyond him.

Neale did not voice his thought, yet he wanted to be the first person
her eyes should rest upon when she did return to consciousness.

"Wal, I'll set to work an' clean out a place fer her," said Slingerland.

"We'll help," rejoined Neale. "Red, you have a look at the horses."

"I'll slip the saddles an' bridles," replied King, "an' let 'em go.
Hosses couldn't be chased out of heah."

Slingerland's cabin consisted really of two adjoining cabins with a door
between, one part being larger and of later construction. Evidently he
used the older building as a storeroom for his pelts. When all these had
been removed the room was seen to be small, with two windows, a table,
and a few other crude articles of home-made furniture.