d--noted, too, that there the usual routine of
his return was interrupted. The great two-inch spurs, his individual
twist to cowboy attire--great spiked wheels which he never used, but
whose glitter and rattle seemed to satisfy him--were forgotten.
Instead, he sank to the rocky floor and meditatively drew from his belt
the beloved corncob pipe.

Troubled, Mira went about the preparation of their evening meal with a
plaintive quietness. Juno, too, seemed oppressed, for after a
tentative wriggle of her stump of a tail she settled back on her
haunches, eyes fixed on her mistress.

Mira struggled to hold back the tears, struggled harder to hide them
when they persisted. To celebrate their return to the old cave under
the river bank she had spent hours that afternoon scouring woods and
river bottom for wild flowers; and a dozen old tin cans rescued from
the camp garbage heap gleamed confused colour in the candle light. For
more hours she had been rasping her little hands with scrubbing the
rude table and the blocks that served as seats; and over the table she
had draped after much experiment a gaudy Indian blanket, thereby
approaching more nearly the atmosphere of home they both craved so
eagerly. About the wall depended picture papers, meaningless in story
but heavy with pathetic longing.

Hitherto he had always noticed so quickly and eagerly her efforts
toward their comfort. From the first it had been one of the rites of
their association--he beaming wordlessly at the touches of decoration
with which she busied herself about their wild homes, she glowing with
vocal pleasure at the things he carved with his own hands--the chair
back in the Cypress Hills cave, the shelves for her stores, the drawer
in the table, the box for Juno to sleep in.

And now he did not seem to notice--and she had worked so hard.

Presently the odour of the cooking venison beat its way to his brain
and he lifted his head from his chest. He saw then the flowers in the
old tomato and butter tins, the Indian blanket hanging from the table,
the fresh spruce boughs of their bed; and his neglect was to him akin
to sacrilege. Rising, he made for the door and the darkness beyond.

Without turning she saw him leave, and in part she understood.

He was suffering--Blue Pete was suffering these days in mind as never
in body. The accumulation of the intense longings since she had been
torn from him down in the Hills to serve her sentence for rustl