issionary halted and gave the beasts their freedom
for a respite and refreshment. He himself felt too weary of soul to go
further.

He took out the ring, the little ring that was too small to go more than
half-way on his smallest finger, the ring she had taken warm and
flashing from her white hand and laid within his palm!

The sun low down in the west stole into the heart of the jewel and sent
its glory in a million multicoloured facets, piercing his soul with the
pain and the joy of his love. He cast himself down upon the grass where
she had sat, where, with his eyes closed and his lips upon the jewel she
had worn, he met his enemy and fought his battle out.

Wearied at last with the contest, he slept. The sun went down, the moon
made itself manifest once more, and when the night went coursing down
its way of silver, two jewels softly gleamed in its radiance, the one
upon his finger where he had pressed her ring, the other from the grass
beside him. With a curious wonder he put forth his hand to the second
and found it was the topaz set in the handle of her whip which she had
dropped and forgotten when they sat together and talked by the way. He
seized it eagerly now, and gathered it to him. It seemed almost a
message of comfort from her he loved. It was something tangible, this,
and the ring, to show him he had not dreamed her coming; she had been
real, and she had wanted him to tell her of his love, had said it would
make a difference all the rest of her life.

He remembered that somewhere he had read or heard a great man say that
to be worthy of a great love one must be able to do without it. Here
now, then, he would prove his love by doing without. He stood with
uplifted face, transfigured in the light of the brilliant night, with
the look of exalted self-surrender, but only his heart communed that
night, for there were no words on his dumb lips to express the fullness
of his abnegation.

Then forth upon his way he went, his battle fought, the stronger for it,
to be a staff for other men to lean upon.

X

HIS MOTHER

Deserts and mountains remain, duties crowd and press, hearts ache but
the world rushes on. The weeks that followed showed these two that a
great love is eternal.

Brownleigh did not try to put the thought of it out of his life, but
rather let it glorify the common round. Day after day passed and he went
from post to post, from hogan to mesa, and back to his shanty again,
always wit