Evening star., 1916-09-17

"1es; 1t is so comfortable that | feel |
may fall asleep" he replied.
OUT in the starlight she would have
seen his dropping head, and his words
would have had different meaning for
her. He was fighting with himself des-
perately, and in his heart was great fear.
He must be badly hurt--his skull frac-
tured-his brain injured If it were
that! There came TO him distorted but
vivid vision of an Indian hurt in the head,
whom he and Father Roland had tried to
save. Without Il surgeon it had been inn
possible. The Indian had died. And he
had had those same spells of sickness--tho
sickness that was creeping over David
again in spite of his effort to fight il off.
He had no very clear notion of tho
movement of Tara's body under him; but
he knew that he was holding on grimly,
and that every little while the girl called
back to him. and he replied Then camo
the time when he failed to answer, and
for time the rocking motion under him
ceased and the girls voice was very near
to him.
Afterward motion was resumed. 1t
seemed to him that he was travelling
great distance altogether too far without
an interruption for sleep, or at least /,
rest. He was conscious of a desire to
voice protest-and all the time his
fingers We're clamped in Tara S name in a
sort of death-grip.
And in her breast Marge's heart was
beating like a hunted thing, and over and
over again she sobbed out broken
prayer as she guided Tara and his burden
through the night: from the forest into
the starlit open; from the open into tho
thick gloom of forest again-in and out Of
starlight and darkness, following that
trail down the valley. She was no longer
thinking of the rock mountain, for il
would be impossible now to climb over the
range into the other valley. She was
heading for cabin-an old and aban-
doncd cabin where they could hide. She
tried to tell David about it many days
after they had begun that journey, it
seemed to him.
"Only Il little longer. Sakewawin,"
she cried, with her arm about him and
her lips close to his bent head. "Only n
little longer! They will not think to search
for us there, and you can seep-sleep--"
Her voice drifted away from him like
loW iluIiuut Ill tHc tree-tOpS-anu MS
fingers still clung in that death-grp to tho
name at Tara's neck
AND many other days later they came
To the cabin. Ii was amazing to him
that the girl should say:
"Wc are only five miles from the Nest
Sakewawin, but they will not hunt for us
here. They will think we have gono
farther--or over the mountains!'
She was putting cold water to his facc;-
and, now that there was no longer tho
rolling motion under him, he was not
quite SO dizzy. She had unrolled tho
bundle and had spread out blanket, and
when he stretched himself out on this, a.
sense of vast relief came over him. In
his confused consciousness, two or three
things stood out with rather odd clearness
before he closed his eyes, and the last of
them was a vision of the girls face bend
ing over him, and of her great starry eyes
looking down at him, and of her voice
urging him gently: l
"Try to sleep, Sakcwawin try to
sleep"
II was many hours later when he awoke.
Hands seemed to be dragging him
forpibly ont nf n pl..e in ubiob h.. u,o,