e fell and for a time could not get
up again. He lay, making ineffectual efforts to rise, his sides heaving,
his eyes rolling in distress. They gave up then, and prepared to make
such camp as they could.

With the setting of the sun it had grown bitterly cold, and Bassett was
forced to light a fire. He did it under the protection of the mountain
wall, and Dick, after unsaddling his fallen horse, built a rough shelter
of rocks against the wind. After a time the exhausted horse got up, but
there was no forage, and the two animals stood disconsolate, or made
small hopeless excursions, noses to the ground, among the moss and scrub
pines.

Before turning in Bassett divided the remaining contents of the flask
between them, and his last cigarettes. Dick did not talk. He sat, his
back to the shelter, facing the fire, his mind busy with what Bassett
knew were bitter and conflicting thoughts. Once, however, as the
reporter was dozing off, Dick spoke.

"You said I told you there was a girl," he said. "Did I tell you her
name?"

"No."

"All right. Go to sleep. I thought if I heard it it might help."

Bassett lay back and watched him.

"Better get some sleep, old man," he said.

He dozed, to waken again cold and shivering. The fire had burned low,
and Dick was sitting near it, unheeding, and in a deep study. He looked
up, and Bassett was shocked at the quiet tragedy in his face.

"Where is Beverly Carlysle now?" he asked. "Or do you know?"

"Yes. I saw her not long ago."

"Is she married again?"

"No. She's revived 'The Valley,' and she's in New York with it."

Dick slept for only an hour or so that night, but as he slept he
dreamed. In his dream he was at peace and happy, and there was a girl
in a black frock who seemed to be a part of that peace. When he roused,
however, still with the warmth of his dream on him, he could not summon
her. She had slipped away among the shadows of the night.

He sat by the fire in the grip of a great despair. He had lost ten years
out of his life, his best years. And he could not go back to where he
had left off. There was nothing to go back to but shame and remorse.
He looked at Bassett, lying by the fire, and tried to fit him into the
situation. Who was he, and why was he here? Why had he ridden out at
night alone, into unknown mountains, to find him?

As though his intent gaze had roused the sleeper, Bassett opened his
eyes, at first drowsily, then wide awake. He raised himself