thrust it weakly
away, asking for cold water. After she had drunk this, her mind
cleared for an instant and she tried to stand up.

"I must go back to Pierre now," she said, looking about with wild but
resolute eyes.

"Lie still," said the stranger gently. "You're not fit to stir. Trust
me. It's all right. You're quite safe. Get rested and well, then you
may go wherever you like. I want only to help you."

The reassuring tone, the promising words coerced her and she dropped
back. Presently, in spite of pain, she slept.

She woke and slept in fever for many hours, vaguely aware, at times,
that she was traveling. She felt the motion of a sled under her and
knew that she was lying on the warm hide of some freshly killed beast
and that a blanket and a canvas covering protected her from a swirl of
snow. Then she thought she heard a voice babbling queerly and saw a
face quite terribly different from other human faces. The covering was
taken from her, snowflakes touched her cheek, a lantern shone in her
eyes, and she was lifted and carried into a warm, pleasant-smelling
place from which were magically and completely banished all sound and
bitterness of storm. She tried to see where she was, but her eyes
looked on incredible colors and confusions, so she shut them and
passively allowed herself to be handled by deft hands. She knew only
that delicious coolness, cleanliness, and softness were given to her
body, that the pain in her shoulder was soothed, that dreamlessly she
slept.

CHAPTER IX

DRIED ROSE-LEAVES

The house that Prosper Gael had built for himself and for the woman
whom Joan came to think of as the "tall child," stood in a canyon, a
deep, secret fold of the hills, where a cliff stood behind it, and
where the pine-needled ground descended before its door, under the
far-flung, greenish-brown shade of fir boughs, to the lip of a green
lake. Here the highest snow-peak toppled giddily down and reared
giddily up from the crystal green to the ether blue, firs massed into
the center of the double image. In January, the lake was a glare of
snow, in which the big firs stood deep, their branches heavily
weighted. Prosper had dug a tunnel from his door through a big drift
which touched his eaves. It was curious to see Wen Ho come pattering
out of this Northern cave, his yellow, Oriental face and slant eyes
peering past the stalactite icicles as though they felt their own
incongruity almost with a sort of terro