-" looking up with eager
hopefulness--"if I go out of it a little way, just on the edge of it
and pray, God will be able to hear my voice?"

"Here, as well as anywhere," he said, moved by her strange fancy, by
the hunger of her voice and face.

"Then it is because there is a curse on me--the curse of Swan's money,
of his evil ways!" She sprang up, stretching her long arms wildly. "I
will pray no more, no more!" she cried. "I will curse God, I will
curse him as Job cursed him, and fling myself from the rocks and
die!"

Mackenzie was on his feet beside her, his hand on her shoulder as if
he would stay her mad intention.

"No, no!" he said, shocked by the boldness of her declaration. "Your
troubles are hard enough to bear--don't thicken them with talk like
this."

She looked at him blankly, as if she did not comprehend, as though her
reason had spent itself in this rebellious outbreak against the unseen
forces of her sad destiny.

"Where is your woman?" she asked.

"I haven't any woman."

"I thought she was your woman, but if she is not, Swan can have her.
Swan can have her, then; I do not care now any more. Swan wants her,
he speaks of her in the night. Maybe when he takes her he will set me
free."

Mrs. Carlson sat again near the lantern, curling her legs beneath her
with the facility of a dog, due to long usage of them in that manner,
Mackenzie believed, when chained to the wall in her lonely house among
the trees. Mackenzie stood a little while watching her as she sat,
chin in her hands, pensive and sad. Presently he sat near her.

"Where is Swan tonight?" he asked.

"Drinking whisky beside the wagon with Hector Hall. They will not
fight. No."

"No," he echoed, abstractedly, making a mental picture of Carlson and
Hall beside the sheep-wagon, the light of a lantern on their faces,
cards in their fists, a jug of whisky in the middle ground within
reach from either hand. It was such diversion as Swan Carlson would
enjoy, the night around him as black as the shadows of his own dead
soul.

"Earl did not come to me this night," she said, complaining in sad
note. "He promised he would come."

"Has he been going over there to see you?" Mackenzie asked, resentful
of any advantage Reid might be seeking over this half-mad creature.

"He makes love to me when Swan is away," she said, nodding slowly,
looking up with serious eyes. "But it is only false love; there is a
lie in his eyes."

"You're right about t