hat you will cleave to her
and to none other, so help you God, taking never another wife in spite
of promise or threat of any priesthood whatsoever, cleaving unto her
and her alone with singleness of heart?"

When they had made their responses, and while the drum was beating upon
his heart, he pronounced them man and wife, sealing upon them "the
blessings of the holy resurrection, with power to come forth in the
morning clothed with glory and immortality."

When he had spoken the final words of the ceremony, he seemed to lose
himself from weakness, reaching out his hands for support. They helped
him down on to the saddle-blanket that Follett had brought, and the
latter now went for more wood.

When he came back they were again reciting the psalm that had seemed to
quiet the sufferer.

"_'Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will
fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort
me.'_"

Follett spread the other saddle-blanket over him. He lay on his side,
his face to the fire, one moment saying over the words of the psalm, but
the next listening in abject terror to something the others could not
hear.

"I wonder you don't hear their screams," he said, in one of these
moments; "but their blood is not upon you." Then, after a little:--

"See, it is growing light over there. Now they will soon be here. They
will know where I had to come, and they will have a spade." He seemed to
be fainting in his last weakness.

Another hour they sat silently beside him. Slowly the dark over the
eastern hill lightened to a gray. Then the gray paled until a flush of
pink was there, and they could see about them in the chill of the
morning.

Then came a silence that startled them all. The drum had stopped, and
the night-long vibrations ceased from their ears.

They looked toward the little man with relief, for the drumming had
tortured him. But his breathing was shallow and irregular now, and from
time to time they could hear a rattle in his throat. His eyes, when he
opened them, were looking far off. He was turning restlessly and
muttering again. She took his hands and found them cold and moist.

"His fever must have broken," she said, hopefully. The little man opened
his eyes to look up at her, and spoke, though absently, and not as if he
saw her.

"They will have a spade with them when they come, never fear. And the
spot must not be forgotten--three hundred yards north to the