and
of her life. She was a passive, shipwrecked thing--a derelict. She had
little thought and no care for her life.

As the silent day slowly brightened through its glare of clouds, she
plodded on, setting her snowshoes in the tracks her leader made. The
pain in her shoulder steadily increased, more and more absorbed her
consciousness. She saw little but the lean, resolute figure that went
before her, turning back now and then with a look and a smile that
were a compelling mixture of encouragement, pity, and command. She did
not know that they were traveling north and west toward the wildest
and most desolate country, that every time she set down her foot she
set it down farther from humanity. She began soon to be a little
light-headed and thought that she was following Pierre.

At noon they entered the woods, and her guide came beside her and led
her through fallen timber and past pitfalls of soft snow. Suddenly, "I
can't go no more," she sobbed, and stopped, swaying. At that he took
her in his arms and carried her a few hundred feet till they entered a
cabin under the shelter of firs.

"It's the ranger-station," said he; "the ranger told me that I could
make use of it on my way back. We can pass the night here."

Joan knew that he had carried her across a strange room and put her on
a strange bed. He took off her snowshoes, and she lay watching him
light a fire in the cold, clean stove and cook a meal from supplies
left by the owner of the house. She was trying now to remember who he
was, what had happened, and why she was in such misery and pain.
Sometimes she knew that he was her father and that she was at home in
that wretched shack up Lone River, and an ineffable satisfaction would
relax her cramped mind; sometimes, just as clearly, she knew that he
was Pierre who had taken her away to some strange place, and, in this
certainty, she was even more content. But always the horrible flame on
her shoulder burnt her again to the confusion of half-consciousness.
He wasn't John Carver, he wasn't Pierre. Who, in God's name, was he?
And why was she here alone with him? She could not frame a question;
she had a fear that, if she began to speak, she would scream and rave,
would tell impossible, secret, sacred things. So she held herself to
silence, to a savage watchfulness, to a battle with delirium.

The man brought her a cup of strong coffee and held up her head so
that she could drink it, but it nauseated her and she