nd so do you."

"Yes, I did--but it seemed to me," she faltered, "that in the present
case--oh, well, let it go." She laughed nervously, and said no more.

Lawrence wondered at her silence, and wanted to know very much what she
thought, but he told himself that after all it was none of his
business.

They had reached the river. The water rushed from the mouth of a gorge
in rapids that sent its every drop sparkling and flashing over a great
rock into a mass of white foam below.

"Oh," cried Claire, "it's beautiful, beautiful!"

He put her down and laughed. "It sounds as if it were leaping from
points of light into cloud-banked foam."

She stared at him in amazement. "It is," she said in a subdued tone.
"How did you know?"

"One learns," he said carelessly. "And how about a camp?"

Her admiration of him vanished into the commonplace.

"We can't find it here," she said, hiding her appreciation of the scene
under her professional-guide tone.

He frowned. "Nowhere close?"

"No. And what is worse, we'll have to go over a mountain. The stream
here is rushing right out from between cliff walls."

Lawrence's spirit sank, but he did not show it. "We'd better eat what
little we have left and then be off," he suggested simply.

That morning was the beginning of their hardest experience since they
first left the beach. Scarcely had they started to climb over the great
ridge, which broke into sheer precipice at the river, when a sharp wind
rose and cut through their unprotected bodies. Claire drew in against
him as close as she could, while he tried to give her more protection
with his arms. The slope was steep and filled with loose rocks so that
he lost ground at every step. They were forced to stop often, and by
noon he was worn out, and they were both bitterly cold. Claire thought
they were near the top, so Lawrence nerved himself to press on.

Night found them standing on the crest of the ridge, in the face of a
bitter wind; before them, across a small plateau, rose a still higher
mountain around the northern side of which a ravine cut its jagged gash
away from the river. Claire stared at the scene until her courage broke
down.

"We can never do it, Lawrence," she moaned, and her head sank wearily
against his shoulder. Her cry was the aching moan of a heart-broken
child. The proud, self-contained Claire was gone. It stirred Lawrence
strangely, and for the first time a warm tenderness for her came over
him. He d