h to hear their lament. So she turned her horse
into Stewart's trail.

Rain fell steadily. The fury of the storm, however, had passed, and the
roll of thunder diminished in volume. The air had wonderfully cleared
and was growing cool. Madeline began to feel uncomfortably cold and wet.
Stewart was climbing faster than formerly, and she noted that Monty kept
at her heels, pressing her on. Time had been lost, and the camp-site was
a long way off. The stag-hounds began to lag and get footsore. The sharp
rocks of the trail were cruel to their feet. Then, as Madeline began to
tire, she noticed less and less around her. The ascent grew rougher and
steeper--slow toil for panting horses. The thinning rain grew colder,
and sometimes a stronger whip of wind lashed stingingly in Madeline's
face. Her horse climbed and climbed, and brush and sharp corners of
stone everlastingly pulled and tore at her wet garments. A gray gloom
settled down around her. Night was approaching. Majesty heaved upward
with a snort, the wet saddle creaked, and an even motion told Madeline
she was on level ground. She looked up to see looming crags and spires,
like huge pipe-organs, dark at the base and growing light upward.
The rain had ceased, but the branches of fir-trees and juniper were
water-soaked arms reaching out for her. Through an opening between crags
Madeline caught a momentary glimpse of the west. Red sun-shafts shone
through the murky, broken clouds. The sun had set.

Stewart's horse was on a jog-trot now, and Madeline left the trail more
to Majesty than to her own choosing. The shadows deepened, and the crags
grew gloomy and spectral. A cool wind moaned through the dark trees.
Coyotes, scenting the hounds, kept apace of them, and barked and howled
off in the gloom. But the tired hounds did not appear to notice.

As black night began to envelop her surroundings, Madeline marked that
the fir-trees had given place to pine forest. Suddenly a pin-point of
light pierced the ebony blackness. Like a solitary star in dark sky
it twinkled and blinked. She lost sight of it--found it again. It grew
larger. Black tree-trunks crossed her line of vision. The light was a
fire. She heard a cowboy song and the wild chorus of a pack of coyotes.
Drops of rain on the branches of trees glittered in the rays of the
fire. Stewart's tall figure, with sombrero slouched down, was now and
then outlined against a growing circle of light. And by the aid of that
light sh