Two days later Walter received his father's letter which he read with a sense of great rejoicing.

"Why, it's just like a story book! Dear old pater! He's the best ever!"

Then he took up the check and began to consider how he would present the matter to Bauer. No one knew better than himself how sensitive Bauer could be on occasion. But he was helpless, and under the circumstances, what else could he do but let his friends come to his assistance? If there was no other way he could probably be prevailed on to take the money as a loan and pay back when his royalties came due on the incubator sales.

He was going over the matter when Bauer came in from his room across the hall.

"How goes it?" asked Walter cheerfully.

"All right," said Bauer gravely. "I don't believe anything ails me. Haven't had another since the last one."

"No? Well, what you want to do is to get right out to the painted desert. Why don't you start?"

"The walking is poor, and I never did enjoy the hot, dusty cars."

"Letters!" said one of the boys who roomed on the next floor. He opened the door as he spoke and threw Walter two letters and seeing Bauer, he said, "One for you!" threw it at him and went on.

Walter opened his letters, which were from his mother and Louis. When he looked up from his reading and glanced at Bauer he saw that something had happened.

"From him," said Bauer briefly.

He handed his letter over to Walter. It was dated and postmarked at Monte Carlo and contained a draft on New York for four hundred dollars.

"I don't ask you to do anything or forgive or anything like that. But as proof that hell is better than this place, I am sending you the last dollar I have after losing the rest of it at the table. Perhaps, even in hell where I am going, there will be some respite granted me for not being totally depraved."

That was all, not even an initial signed.

"It means———" Walter stammered.

"That he has committed suicide—yes—I suppose—"

"But there's been no newspaper account item in the New York journals."

Bauer shook his head. "The cases at Monte Carlo don't get into the newspapers." And then to Walter's embarrassment, Bauer broke down and sobbed as if he would never stop. But after all, his father, in spite of his sins, had really loved the boy, and Bauer was of a very affectionate nature which had never in all his lifetime been satisfied.

Before Walter could offer a word of sympathy Bauer got up and bolted for his room. Walter suspected what was coming and before Bauer could lock his door he had gone in after him. The hemorrhage was severe. When Bauer was through with it and on his couch, Walter rapidly outlined a plan for Bauer. He must get out to the painted desert at once.

"I wanted to wait until you could go, but it isn't fair to ask you before term closes and that won't be for six weeks. Oh, yes, I can make it alone all right. Don't worry over that. And now I've got this money, that settles it."

Walter wondered if he ought to tell him about the money from home. Finally he did tell him frankly and was pleased at the way Bauer took it. When Walter suggested that in case he had to stay out there any length of time, the money would be held in trust for him, Bauer did not object, simply saying that by that time he would either be well or dead.

Two days after this, Paul wrote that Mr. Masters at Tolchaco had written cordially, saying Bauer would be welcome at the mission and could have the old Council Hogan. He thought if his case was like a number of others he had known, that it would be perfectly possible for him in a year or two to be of real service about the mission.

Walter gave out all this information as he helped Bauer pack up. He had misgivings about letting him start alone, but after consulting the doctor, concluded there was no special risk for Bauer and when the day came for him to leave, he was much pleased to note Bauer's good spirits in spite of the shock of his father's act and his own dubious future.

Masters had sent word that Bauer was to go to Canyon Diablo where a wagon would be waiting to drive him the twenty-four miles to Tolchaco. Walter went down and saw him comfortably started and then went back to his room, feeling relieved to know that matters were going so well, after promising Bauer that if possible he would come and see him during the summer. It would depend on the financial outlook.

At Chicago, Bauer changed to a tourist car and found as companions, two other young men, both going to Flagstaff to live in tents at the base of the San Francisco Mountains. Before reaching Albuquerque the three young men had become well acquainted and had good naturedly exchanged joking statements about their "cases," and Bauer, who had suffered from a slight flow just after leaving Kansas city, boasted that he was able to control his lungs by pressing his tongue hard against the roof of his mouth and resting his chest on the back of the car seat in front.

When the train reached Hardy, a few miles north of the Little Colorado, there was a long stop, explained by the conductor as caused by a cloudburst at Winslow. The train made several attempts to start on to Colfax, but finally backed slowly down into Hardy, where it was stalled for the night. In the morning the information slowly reached the passengers that there were fifteen miles of washouts east of Winslow and it would be an indefinite time before repairs could be made.

A few cowboys, Mexicans and Indians were evidently chronic and constant loafers about the little station. Among them was a teamster loading stuff on a wagon. Bauer noticed two boxes marked Tolchaco and asked the man about them.

"I'm taking them over by Mr. Masters's orders. Usually go to Canyon Diablo, but no telling how long it'll be to get there with number two. Mr. Masters wants the stuff bad. Truck for them Injuns at the mission."

"But aren't we on the north side of the river here? How will you get over to the mission? Isn't that on the other side?" asked Bauer.

"Sure. We can ford it there, if the water ain't too fierce."

Bauer thought awhile and then asked if he might go with the teamster. There was room in the wagon for his trunk and bag, and after securing his effects from the train he transferred to the wagon, and bidding a cheery farewell to his travelling companions, who he said might have to stay on the train two or three days, the teamster drove off with Bauer across the shimmering desert.

They reached the river the next day about noon, after a glorious night which Bauer will never forget, as he slept with his face upturned to the diamond stars of that desert expanse, breathing that pure air of God's all out of doors.

The river was high from the recent heavy rains in the mountains but the teamster said he could make the ford all right. This was at a point nearly a mile above the mission which was not visible owing to a bend in the stream.

Bauer, who was totally unfamiliar with the country, the river, the customs, the entire situation, calmly sat in his place as the driver started his team down the shelving bank into the chocolate coloured stream.

The water was a little over the hubs of the wheels at first and it seemed to be of that uniform depth as the horses slowly walked along. But suddenly without warning the off horse sank down clear over his back. The next minute the wagon wheels tipped down as if they had run over the edge of a precipice a mile high.

The driver yelled and swore in several languages, but the nigh horse plunged and then sank over his back. The current caught the entire outfit and turned it completely over, tumbling horses, wagon and stuff over and over like a roller. As Bauer felt the water closing over him he had a momentary glimpse of two figures on the south bank of the river running and gesticulating, one a man, the other a woman. He felt himself struggling in a confused tangle of wagon wheels, floundering horses, yelling driver, boxes and muddy water. Then something struck him on the head. He struggled to help himself, throwing his arms out blindly, was aware that someone had hold of his hair and was striking him in the face, of a great roaring and rushing sound, and then he lost all consciousness as the river bore him and his would-be rescuers down the stream together.



CHAPTER XII

THE penetrating light of the desert came into the east opening of the Council Hogan at Tolchaco, and bathed in its enveloping flood the strip of sand that lay in the opening, up to a white and black Navajo rug on which was lying a quiet figure over which had been thrown a bright coloured Mexican serape.

An old Indian was sitting outside the hogan close by the entrance, and within an arm's length just inside sat a white man gravely watching the recumbent figure on the rug.

Across the figure on the rug, opposite the white man, sat a young woman, also quietly and gravely watching.

Outside, the 'dobe flats stretched brown and bare until they melted into the confused and fantastic rock piles of twisted and pictured desert stone. In the other direction an irregular streak of light green trailed along, marking the winding of the river bound by twisted cottonwoods and vivid patches of corn fields. Through the shimmer of the heat far off, fifty miles distant, were flung up against a turquoise sky the peaks of the San Francisco mountains, across the front of which a trailing cloud had begun to form. On a slightly rising ledge of rock stood the mission buildings, and through the clear still air, children's voices came floating down to the hogan, where the white man and the young woman were silently watching. A group of Navajos was gathered at the trader's store, some little distance away, their faces turned in the direction of the hogan, their ponies standing near by or tethered to the cottonwood, by the river.

Suddenly the figure on the rug stirred, its right arm rose slowly and the hand made an effort to touch the fringe of the serape.

The white man stooped forward, gently took the hand and held it a moment in his own. As he laid it down, he smiled at the other watcher and said:

"I believe he's coming on all right. The Father is good to him."

The young woman put her hands over her face and her fingers were trembling. A tear was on her cheek when she took her hands away and clasped them over her knees. Then she rose and went out of the eastern doorway, when she stood a moment, her clear gaze resting on the old Indian sitting there with his back against the hogan. He raised his head and asked her a question.

"Yes, the Father is good. He will live, Mr. Clifford says."

She went back into the hogan and to her surprise the figure on the rug was sitting up. It was Bauer, and he was saying in his slow, deliberate fashion:

"I'm not certain, I seem to be confused, but this is Tolchaco, isn't it? When did I arrive? I don't seem to remember well."

"You arrived rather unexpectedly yesterday," said Clifford, with a smile that had a good day's nursing in it. "In fact, you arrived in a hurry. Don't talk. You don't have to."

"My head," said Bauer, and he laid down again.

"That's right, son. We prescribe perfect quiet for you. You don't need even to ask a question. There will be time enough."

And so Bauer found out as the desert days slipped by and he slowly and surely drank in health and strength. He would lie there in perfect contentment, each day noting a little more of life. The nights were splendid with God's own peace. The friends would place his cot near the opening of the hogan and from where he lay he could see the stars come out and blaze all up the half dome of the visible sky, Peshlekietsetti, the old silver smith, who had been near the door the first morning after the accident on the river, would come and sit down inside the hogan to relieve the other watchers. And even after there was no particular need of special nursing, the old man would come and gravely, without attempt to speak, sit there by him, occasionally working at some bit of silver ornament. Groups of the children from the mission would come and stand at the hogan opening, and often come by twos or threes sent by Mr. Clifford with some token which they left on the sand and then shyly ran back to the mission. The doctor at Flagstaff had been over and he had pronounced Bauer's case to be entirely susceptible to climate, diet and time. And Bauer, who had heard him talking with Clifford, from that moment made wonderful progress, and to Clifford's delight was soon able to walk about, and even go as far as the river, where he would sit down on the fallen trunk of an old cottonwood and watch the Navajos on the other side cultivate their corn and melon patches.

He was sitting there one afternoon watching the thick waters trickling by and wondering how such an insignificant and shallow stream could overturn a heavy wagon and two horses, when the man called Clifford, who had been mending a harness at a bench under a tree near by, came and sat down by him, bringing a part of his work from the bench.

"I have a lot of questions I want to ask," said Bauer, watching the Mission worker as he sewed on a buckle.

"All right. But before you begin might as well say to you I was born in Vermont."

"Born in Vermont?"

"Yes, ever hear of it?"

"Yes," said Bauer slowly. "But what has that to do with my asking questions?"

"You'll see when you begin."

Bauer smiled at the other's irresistible grin. He had already made up his mind to like Clifford tremendously.

"Well, then, I want to know, first, who saved my life when I was drowning?"

"Why don't you ask Miss Gray?"

"I will, if you can't tell me."

Clifford chuckled softly.

"I don't know why I shouldn't tell you. But do you feel strong enough to stand a good sized shock?"

"It takes a good deal to shock me," said Bauer gravely, his mind recurring to his father.

"Of course we haven't encouraged your talking much up to this time, and you don't strike me as a very rapid fire speaker, not exactly what is called garrulous, you know. We've been wondering whether you would care to hear about your little upset in there."

Bauer coloured a little. "I feel somewhat ashamed to think I haven't asked before—But———"

"Yes, we know. Perfectly. You don't need to say anything. But you feel pretty strong now, don't you?"

"Yes," said Bauer patiently. "I feel strong enough to know a good many things about this wonderful place."

"'Tis wonderful, isn't it?" said Clifford, laying his work down on the log and pointing at the river. "That old stream is one of the queerest productions God ever made. I'm not criticising it, or saying I could have done any better. But one day it rares up big enough to drown a pair of hippopotamuses and the next day a child can dam it up with a piece of mud, and the dust blows out of the channel so bad that it needs a sprinkler to settle it. That's the Little Colorado. It will bear watching."

Clifford picked up his work and seemed to be waiting for Bauer to repeat his question, but that was not Bauer's way, and Clifford, after glancing at him sharply, laughed and said:

"You can thank Miss Gray for pulling you out of the river."

"Miss Gray?"

"Yes. We sort of suspicioned that Tracker, that's the teamster you came up with from Hardy, would try the ford and we went up there that day to tell him not to go in because a part of the ford ledge had broken off and we feared he hadn't heard of it. Well, we were too late. You had driven down the bank and were half way across before we sighted you. Miss Gray was in the water before you upset. She knew it was bound to come. I got tangled up with the horses and Tracker———"

"Wait!" said Bauer with more emotion than he could control, "do you mean to say that Miss Gray and you swam out to us while we were being rolled over———"

"Well, what would you do? I was occupied, as I said, with Tracker and the horses, and half the time I couldn't tell 'em apart. But I saw Miss Gray grab you by the hair and then she—you'll forgive her for it, I hope—she struck you with her fist right in the face."

Bauer looked bewildered. "What did she do that for?"

"I thought maybe you would want to know. I would. Well, how could she save you when your arms were thrashing around like a windmill and you were liable to grab her arms and drown her and you, too. So she had to strike you. I know she is waiting till you get a little stronger so she can apologise."

"Apologise," murmured Bauer.

"Yes. It wasn't a ladylike thing to do in polite society. But there wasn't time to ask your permission or tell you why it was necessary. Well, after that little incident, Tracker and the horses and I got so mixed up with each other that we haven't hardly got untangled since. There was one time there when I wasn't quite certain whether I was a horse or a wagon wheel. We drifted down here and it just seemed providential and saved a lot of carrying when we finally got out right here."

Clifford pointed to a spot down the stream a short ways from where they were sitting.

"We saved the horses, cut the harness to bits off of 'em, but the wagon went down and got sucked into the Black Bear quicksands and you can see one of the wheels. See! over there."

Clifford stood up and Bauer in his excitement got up on the log to see better. Far down the channel near the opposite bank, one wheel of the teamster's wagon showed a little, the rest of the vehicle buried in the treacherous sands.

"You and Miss Gray came ashore up above. Right there." Clifford pointed to a great root of a tree that swayed out from an old stump six feet above the channel. It protruded from the bank like some fantastic sprawling arm.

"She grabbed that old root as you went whirling down and I guess it was about time. We had quite a time pumping the water out of her and for one while,—but it's lucky you have a good head of hair and that you hadn't been to a barber lately. Miss Gray got a regular grip on it. We had quite a time separating her fingers from your locks. You see, I'm telling you because I thought maybe she might be a little timid about the details. If she has to apologise for hitting you in the face, it would be too bad to have to go on and ask to be excused for pulling your hair."

"Pulling my hair," murmured Bauer, in astonishment.

"Yes," said Clifford, winking one eye. "Pulling it as if she wanted a lock to remember you by. But that's nothing. You ought to see Miss Gray pull two Hopis out of the river one day last winter. That was just above the Black Falls. A Hopi can't swim any more than a sailor. But they never cut their hair, so it's just made for rescue work. You're the fifth person Miss Gray has pulled out of this so-called stream. She's entitled to that many Carnegie medals, but no one knows about it down east and our daily papers here at Tolchaco never mention such common events as rescue from drowning. That isn't news."

Bauer was silent for several minutes as Clifford resumed his work. He had been obliged to thread a needle and in the process had put the end of the thread in his mouth.

"You don't mind if I ask more questions? It's all so remarkable here and all that's happened. I would like———"

"Don't hesitate. It is one of the rules of the Mission here never to get offended, no matter what anyone says. You couldn't hurt our feelings if you tried."

"And I don't want to try. I don't know how I'm going to express my thanks for all you have done, and especially to Miss Gray."

"That is a kind of difficult place, isn't it? Now I was never rescued by anyone; and I don't know just what I would say. 'Thank you' sounds kind of tame. Perhaps you could throw it into German and make it sound better."

Bauer looked embarrassed and Clifford at once hastened to say.

"Don't worry over a little matter like that. You don't need to say anything about it. Miss Gray will say she was only too glad to do it, no trouble at all, don't think of such a thing, etc. You know how the ladies talk. If you go to say anything about it that's what she will say, ten to one. You needn't be afraid she'll ask you to marry her or anything like that."

Bauer blushed furiously and Clifford laughed so heartily that Bauer could not help joining him, although he had never met anyone like Clifford and did not exactly understand him.

"Tell me about yourself, Mr. Clifford. I'm not a native of Vermont but I am curious and I've been wondering as I lay in the hogan what your position here was, if you will pardon me?"

"Pardon you?" said Clifford cheerfully, as he proceeded to punch holes in a tug. "There's nothing I like to talk about so much as myself. You couldn't hit on a more interesting topic of conversation for me. Well, I'm a general all around missionary at large and handy man. One day I shoe the horses and next day I help Mr. Masters translate the Bible into Navajo. Next day I dig a well and day after that I help old Touchiniteel build a house. Then I send word to the President of the U. S. to let him know that the cattle men at Flagstaff are trespassing on our rights at Canyon Diablo and next day I'm medicine man for some poor devil that has tumbled over the twisted falls at Neota. I teach school while Mr. and Mrs. Masters are gone right now over to Tuba at the convention. And when there isn't anything else to do, I help Miss Gray rescue people from that old mud hole. Being a missionary is no end of fun. It's a wonder to me how most people get any fun out of life unless they are missionaries."

"And the elderly woman who wears glasses is your sister. She has been so kind to me. I can never repay her."

"Don't try. Yes, Hannah and I have been here at Tolchaco a long time. We have had the fun of our lives here. She does about everything in the house from washing the dishes to converting the heathen. She works for nothing and throws in her time."

"And—and Miss Gray?"

"I thought maybe you might enquire about her, after awhile. Well, Miss Gray is one of the salt of the earth. She's a whole salt mine. She's not been here long, but she's got 'em all going,—Indians, cowboys, traders, gamblers, missionaries, teamsters, everybody. Everybody is in love with her. I've asked her to marry me several times, that is, I've only asked her to marry me once, several times, and I get the same answer every time. She's a graduate of Mt. Holyoke and used to be physical director of the girl's school at Peekskill. That's where she learned to swim and rescue people. She knows several languages and can talk Navajo better than Peshlekietsetti. And she is the friend of every Indian, Navajo or Hopi, between Sunshine and Castle Butte. And she is not proud a little bit. And cheerful? Well, she is just as cheerful every time she says no to me as if it was the first time. And she can sing—you've heard her Sunday nights. She can sing a rattlesnake out of its skin. Well, there is a lot more, but I consider that much a pretty good introduction. If I had one like it, I'd feel as if the press notices had the performance distanced a mile."

Bauer stared at Clifford, hardly knowing how to take all he said. The German mind was not acclimated to this special kind of humour. But Clifford was so absolutely frank, and happy, so free from any hint of heartbreak or trouble, that the more Bauer listened to him the more he liked him and the more fascinated he became with his peculiar surroundings. He had never known any real Christian people except the Douglas family, and the spectacle of the genuine self sacrifice, the bearing of daily discomfort and pain and wrong, with such cheerfulness and even hilarity, moved him with a feeling of astonishment.

Clifford's description of Miss Gray filled Bauer with wonder that a young woman of such character and attainments was willing to go to such a place and give her life to the seemingly impossible task of Christianising a lot of dirty, superstitious, lazy Indians. That was his definition of her task and of the people whom she had come to serve. But he had not yet learned even the first short lesson of the attractiveness of the missionary call. And he had not even a glimmer of the great fact that the history of missions in every age reveals the beautiful fact that some of earth's choicest spirits have considered missionary work as the most honourable and honouring work in the world, and that no grace or strength of mind or body is too great to pour it all out unstintedly on just such dirty, unattractive beings as Indians. Bauer was destined to begin by pitying a mistake which such a young woman as Miss Gray was making, and end by envying her the place which she had made for herself in the hearts of these neglected people.

He was silent during a period while Clifford was busy with some part of his harness demanding his attention, then Clifford said, after whistling a bar of "Anywhere with Jesus I can safely go":

"Any more of our folks you want ante mortem epitaphs of?"

"Mr. and Mrs. Masters. Of course I've not seen them. I've heard Mr. and Mrs. Douglas speak of them. It was through Mr. Douglas, you know, that I came out here."

"Yes, the Douglases are good friends of the mission. Mr. Douglas sends us two hundred dollars a year and sometimes as high as four hundred and twenty. Wish he'd come out here and bring his family. Hasn't he got a daughter by the name of Helen?"

"Yes," said Bauer. And try as hard as he would he could not conceal his embarrassment.

"Do you know her? Is she a nice girl?"

"Yes," said Bauer, again blushing deeply. And then he hastened to say, quickly for him:

"You were going to tell me about Mr. and Mrs. Masters?"

"Oh, was I? Well, they're the salt of the earth, too. They don't count any cost and the harder the work, the better it seems to suit. Mr. Masters can live on eighteen dollars a month and board himself. There isn't anything he can't do, from making a windmill out of a bushel of old tin cans to preaching seven times on Sunday. And Mrs. Masters is a prize winner for making trouble feel ashamed of itself. She never complains about anything. One week last summer we had eight days of continuous wind. You never saw a desert wind, did you? Or taste one? Well, you have one of the times of your life coming to you. The sand cavorts around like spring lamb and peas. You can't shut it out of a hardboiled egg. It drifts into the house and covers the dishes and the beds and the books and the chairs and the floors and does the work of blotting paper while you're writing letters to the Agricultural Department in Washington asking them to irrigate the Little Colorado so we can raise garden truck in the channel between the rainy seasons. At the dinner table the custard pie looks as if it was dusted with pulverised sugar and you eat so much sand that you begin to feel the need of a gizzard like a hen. It fills your pockets, and at night you can shake a pint out of each ear, if your ears are big enough. It drifts up on the porch like snow and sifts through a pane of glass like a sieve.

"Well, all through that eight-day week, Mrs. Masters was so cheerful it was actually depressing. She couldn't have looked more cheerful if she had been going over to Flagstaff to sit for her photograph on her birthday. The rest of us just groaned and bore it. We lost our temper with one another and never found it again till the wind quit. We were ornery and fractious. We just couldn't help it. But Mrs. Masters went around the house nursing the baby and a toothache and singing so loud you could hear her way out to the graveyard:

"'The sands of Time are sinking, The dawn of heaven breaks, The summer morn I've sighed for, The fair sweet morn awakes.'

"My! I used to think to myself if the man that wrote that hymn knew how the sands of Tolchaco were sinking into our hair and spirits, he'd a written another verse, to cheer us on our sandy way. But any woman that can keep up her spirits during a desert sand storm is more than a half sister to a cherubim. I don't want to know anyone better than that. It would scare me to be in the same room alone with him."

"I'm sure I shall like them both," said Bauer. "It seems to me that all the people here at this mission are pretty near the angels."

"Well, some of us are a little lower, I guess. But we do have some jolly times and no mistake. Barring the heat and the sand and the floods and the drinking water and the wind and the canned goods and the absence of pasture and the high price of hay and the lack of shade and a few other little things, Tolchaco is a great resort all the year around for people that aren't too particular about trifles.

"But you've pumped me dry about us; mind if I ask a few questions about you?"

"No," said Bauer with a smile. "There isn't much for me to tell."

"I take it you're a German to start with?" said Clifford gravely, but he managed in some remarkable manner to work and whistle at the same time he spoke.

"Yes."

"You won't have much use for the language out here, except Miss Gray uses it if she wants to. She's reading a book right now in German, written by a Mr. Goethe. If I had a name like that, I'd have it broken up and set again in a new frame. Mr. Douglas in his letter about you said you were an inventor by trade. But he didn't go into particulars. What can you invent?"

Bauer started to tell Clifford about his incubator. Clifford grew so interested that he dropped his work and came over on the log by Bauer to listen. He was just eagerly beginning to ask a number of questions when he looked up and exclaimed,

"There's that old white face broke his hobbles again and he's heading for the corn patch. I'll have to head him off."

He started towards the unshackled offender, and Bauer was amused to see the animal, the moment it caught sight of its keeper kick up its heels and make a dash for the 'dobe flats into which it madly galloped, Clifford disappearing in its wake, enveloped in a cloud of dust.

The afternoon sun was pleasantly flecked as it sifted down through the cottonwoods on Bauer, and he sat there going over his talk with Clifford and smiling once in awhile in his own fashion as he recalled a sentence here and there. It was pleasant to be with friends, to feel the strength coming back, to note the response of his lungs to the full drawn breath. He had not had a hemorrhage since reaching Tolchaco. And in spite of his submersion in the river he had suffered almost no pain. He began to construct some kind of a future, and wonder what he could do while at the mission to help in any way. He was paying for his board, and by the plan arranged between Douglas and Masters they were to provide medical help or nursing if necessary. But Bauer had surprised everyone by his wonderful response to nature's help and it looked now very much as if in less than six months he would be on the road to full recovery. It was now the last of June and the desert heat was pulsing over all the strange land, but Bauer was drinking in health and beginning to yield to the glamour of the place.

"Guide me, Oh, Thou Great Jehovah, Pilgrim through this desert land"—a voice soared up close by, ringing down past Bauer, and he looked up towards the Mission.

Down the slight elevation came a young woman with a group of children following. As they came down near where he sat, Bauer saw it was Miss Gray and half a dozen of her charges who had been left in her care while Miss Clifford and one of the housemaids had driven over to the Canyon to see a sick woman.

She came and sat down on the sand at the side of the old log and said in a perfectly simple and friendly manner, free from all hint of embarrassment:

"I saw you were all alone here, Mr. Bauer, and came down to see if there was anything you needed. If you want to be alone, I'll go away."

"Why, no, I don't need anything, and I don't want you to go away, at least not until I have tried to tell you what is not easy to say, what a wonderful thing that you—that you actually saved my life from that treacherous stream!"

"Oh, I was only too glad to do it, it wasn't any trouble at all, don't think of such a thing," the young woman tried to speak lightly, thinking she detected a note of unnecessary shyness in the German youth.

To her surprise Bauer burst out laughing.

"I beg pardon, Miss Gray, but that is just what Mr. Clifford said you would say if I tried to thank you, and I couldn't help laughing, it sounded so strange."

"What else did Mr. Clifford say?" asked the lifesaver, looking up quickly at Bauer.

Bauer was so taken back he couldn't reply. Miss Gray laughed, the most jolly, contagious laugh Bauer had ever heard.

"Never mind. But isn't Mr. Clifford a character? He's one of the rarest fellows you ever saw. The most self sacrificing and self forgetful man I ever knew. And the bravest. I wish you could have seen him in that tangle with Tracker and the horses. I never expected he would get out alive. Did he tell you about it?"

"He told me about you. How you———"

"Had to strike you in the face? It seems dreadful, doesn't it? But I had to or you would have drowned both of us. You'll forgive that, won't you?"

"Forgive?" murmured Bauer.

"Because you see the Little Colorado is one of the most treacherous streams in the world. It's full of sink holes and they make eddies and whirlpools and when it's in flood as that day, it's carrying down all sorts of drift stuff and you are liable to get hit and pulled down. Well, Mr. Clifford went clear under twice, carried down by getting caught between the fork branch of an old water log. All the time he was pulling at Tracker and cutting away with his knife at the harness. If he hadn't cut the harness just in time, I couldn't have got you out, for you were caught around the feet with the lines. I suppose you got tangled in them when you fell over. We had a serious time getting Mr. Clifford back to consciousness. So if you are going to thank anyone it is Mr. Clifford who deserves most of it. I simply towed you to the bank after he had cut you loose."

"Then I owe my life to both of you. That makes you doubly my friends. You do not know how much it means to me."

"Consider everything said," interrupted Miss Gray with a cheery tone, "and of course you will excuse me for pulling your hair?"

"Pulling my hair," murmured Bauer.

"It couldn't be helped. Say no more. Oh, I want to tell you how lucky you are a German. I run across some hard places in Goethe's Hermann und Dorothea. Will you help me out with the translation?"

"Indeed I will, Miss Gray."

"You will have to do it in payment for saving you," she said lightly. And then with a change of manner—"How little we know the real value of life. Of any life. Now, that little girl Ansa. Come, Ansa, come here a minute."

Ansa, a six year old, came at once and stood by Miss Gray, looking up at her out of the blackest eyes. The American turned the little Indian face towards Bauer. "Look!" she said passionately. "Look at one of my beloved ones! Is she not entitled to a full womanhood redeemed and developed by Christ? Has any living being a right to deny her that boon? Can America call itself Christian and go on refusing the water of life to these lost lambs of the desert?"

She seemed to forget Bauer's presence as she swept her arms about the child and enveloped it in a comprehensive enfolding of salvation as if by that act she would compel life abundantly for a soul that otherwise would never know it. Bauer had never seen anything like it and he was almost bewildered by it. He could not accustom himself to the sight of this talented, educated, cultured young woman giving her life to the hard, uncouth, repulsive surroundings. There were whole volumes of life that Felix Bauer had never opened, to say nothing of whole volumes he had never known to be in existence.

After a short silence, Miss Gray said softly, "You know the Douglas family? They are great friends of us here at the mission. We want them to come out here some time. Do you know Helen Douglas? She and I were together one year at Manitou. She is a lovely girl."

"Yes," said Bauer. At that moment a call came from the mission house for Miss Gray and she rose to go.

"Don't forget the Goethe when you're strong enough. Isn't it fine you're getting well so fast?"

She nodded a good-bye to him and left him to dwell over their little talk, but most of all he recurred again and again to the sight of her with her arms about the child, kneeling on the sand and looking off to the east, to that far east that might, if it would, with its opulence, save life, instead of waste it.

Mr. and Mrs. Masters came back from Tuba two days after and Bauer found them all that Clifford had said. Never in all his life had the lonely student been so petted and surrounded by friendship. He grew strong with amazing rapidity. Clifford joked him about his appetite and Masters threatened to raise his board bill.

One evening as Clifford and Peshlekietsetti were sitting by the hogan and Bauer was between them, Masters came down from the Mission waving a letter.

"Listen to this! Douglas and his wife, daughter and oldest son are coming to pay us a visit first of August. Isn't that jolly! We'll plan a trip to Oraibi. It's their turn for the snake dance. I haven't seen Douglas since we graduated from Phillips Andover. It's fine!"

Bauer was excited over the prospect.

"When will they be here?"

"First of August. In about three weeks now. We'll all go together. You'll be strong enough by that time. Mrs. Masters needs a little vacation. We'll leave someone in charge here and go and play a little."

Masters was as pleased as a child. Later on, after the papers had come in from Flagstaff, he announced that there were two parties from New York and one from Pittsburgh, going to cross up to Oraibi to see the snake dance from Canyon Diablo. "The Van Shaws are listed. You remember, Miss Gray. Old friends of yours, aren't they?"

Miss Gray looked annoyed. The first time Bauer had ever seen such a look on her face. She answered, however, cheerfully enough, "The Van Shaws are relatives of mother's." Masters did not ask anything more and Bauer did not dwell on the incident. That night he lay watching the stars through the hogan door. Life was meaning so much to him now. But could he bear to see too much of Helen Douglas in this desert land? He was troubled over the question and its unsettled answer.



CHAPTER XIII

IT was an hour before sunrise at Tolchaco and Bauer had awakened from a restful sleep and from the place where he lay in the Council Hogan he noted with pure enjoyment the splendid colour of the sky framed in the opening, the exquisite blending from the pearly grey into the unpaintable, soft moving colours that he had looked at with growing awe during many wonderful mornings in July. He could not remove the impression that it was God's hand that moved over the sky, painting with an art that man's cheap imitation could never approach even in the faintest degree.

It was the morning of the day they were all to start for Oraibi to see the snake dance which was to be given in three or four days according to announcements sent out by the runners. The Douglases had come as they had planned and had been visiting at the mission now for two weeks. Mr. and Mrs. Douglas were delighted with what they saw and heard of the mission work. Walter had made a horseback trip to the Grand Canyon through the solemn dry pine forest from Flagstaff and had returned to Tolchaco in time to join the party for Oraibi. Helen had been received at once as a favourite by all the mission people, had renewed her acquaintance with Miss Gray, and had shown herself friendly, yet not too friendly, with Bauer, who had steadily gained in strength and was looking forward with great anticipation, as they all were, to the Oraibi trip.

He lay there contentedly musing in his deliberate way, for he mused as slowly as he spoke, when he was roused by a voice that came with clear accents across the 'dobe flats. He had heard it often in the early morning, but the sound of it never ceased to create in him a wondering awe and more or less bewilderment to reconcile his first thought of Elijah Clifford with other impressions that came on later. For it was Clifford's voice quietly speaking, yet in such distinct fashion that, although he was kneeling out on the edge of the 'dobe flats, what he said was plainly heard by Bauer where he lay and unless he had covered his ears he could not avoid catching the words.

"O Thou Dayspring from on high, what a glorious world we live in! Forgive us that we shut our eyes to its beauty and close our ears to its music. I thank you, God, for a good night's sleep and a good morning's wakening. Help all of us to make it a good day for one another. We think so much of ourselves, of our body's comfort, and what we shall eat and drink and be clothed withal that sometimes a whole day has gone and we no nearer the Kingdom. We've lost our way in the desert and the water all gone. We are going to start out to-day to see these poor creatures of yours go through their ancient prayer for rain. Forgive them, good God. How should they know any better. No one ever told them of a better way. And there's old Touchiniteel, poor old savage. I would give anything, most anything, to see him brought into the fold. Is he too old to be saved, Lord Jesus? Can't you save him? It's not easy, I know, but we aren't asking you to do easy things out here. Most of them are hard, but don't you like to do hard things? Isn't that what being God means? And Peshlekietsetti—he's another, I want to see him saved. And old Begwoettin. You know how the old man never told a lie in his life. And he loves his grandchildren. Why, he would die in a minute for Ansa and Riba. He can't be so very bad. Somehow I can't think of his being lost. He isn't half so bad as Jake Rambeau, the trader. And Jake's had a high school education and calls himself civilised.

"We are all in need of the Spirit's presence to-day. I want more of the presence. My heart longs to walk with the Master to-day. If the Master will be gentle with me as he was with Peter two or three times when he didn't deserve it, I would be glad. O Master, tell me your will. I need you so much, so much———"

And then the sound of the voice trailed off into a murmur indistinguishable to Bauer from where he lay. But he knew that Elijah Clifford had thrown himself full length on the ground and was pleading in his own way for the Divine presence, for victory over himself and triumph for the Kingdom in that desert, for once in the dawn when he had heard his voice, Bauer had poked a hole through the dirt over the wall of the hogan and for one moment, during which he felt almost ashamed for looking, he had seen Clifford prostrate himself thus and lie there outstretched for how long, he did not know. It did not seem right to him to look for more than a minute.

After a silence of about half an hour, during which Bauer had risen, Clifford appeared in the doorway of the hogan with his usual cheerful "Good-morning; Sehr gut?"

"Ja, sehr gut," replied Bauer. "When do we start?"

"Right after breakfast."

"How long will it take us to make the trip to Oraibi?"

"Oh, it depends on how often we lose the way. May take two days, may take three."

"Have you been there before?"

"Seen the snake dance five times."

"Is it as wonderful as they say?"

"Is it? I am just as much interested in it now as I was the first time. But the poor devils! Half of 'em don't know what their rigamarole means. And Mr. Masters thinks the government ought to put an end to it. Last time there were over a hundred tourists came up from all over the country and turned Oraibi into a sort of bargain day. The dance confirms 'em in their superstitions. But no mistake it's a wonderful sight to be going on in the U. S."

"Mr. Masters said several parties were going to come this year from Pittsburgh and New York."

"Yes. The Van Shaws are among them. I understood Miss Douglas to tell Miss Gray that one of these Van Shaws was in the same school with her brother and you. Do you know him?"

"Yes—I know who he is," said Bauer, slower than usual. He could not forget the incident that occurred in Walter's room when Van Shaw had started to relate an objectionable story and Walter had prevented him from telling it. Van Shaw's general reputation for fast and questionable habits corresponded with this incident and Bauer felt annoyed at the possibility of a chance meeting with his party.

But in the bustle of preparation for the journey, everything else was soon forgotten except the immediate interest. Bauer was not expected to do anything except get his own few travelling necessities together. But he quietly helped Mrs. Masters in a number of ways and she afterwards told Clifford that the laconic German student was the most remarkable young man she ever knew to anticipate a want and do a thing right the first time.

"Just the opposite of me," said Clifford. "I have to do a thing twice anyway to make sure, like the doctor in our old town in Vermont, who used to say that if he didn't kill with the first operation he was dead sure to cure with the next."

When the chuck wagons were all ready Bauer found to his pleasure that he was assigned to the light platform spring wagon in which Esther and Helen, together with Clifford and Mrs. Masters, were going. Mr. Masters, Miss Gray, Walter and Miss Clifford were assigned to one of the chuck wagons and Peshlekietsetti with two of the older pupils in the school and one of the younger Indians had charge of a third wagon containing the tents and the water.

The party was on the way shortly after sunrise and reached the place of the ford in about an hour. The river was very low and as the wagons went over on the rock ledge, only a few inches of water were trickling through the wheels.

"You wouldn't believe, would you, Miss Douglas, that Mr. Bauer and I had a good swim right about here a few weeks ago?"

"Oh, tell me about that," cried Helen, who with all the rest of the visitors had of course heard of Bauer's rescue, and in her heart was envious of Miss Gray for her physical prowess. But she had never been able to prevail on her to give any but the most unsatisfactory account of the rescue.

So Clifford launched into a glowing account of the affair, obliterating himself entirely and making it seem that Miss Gray was the only person present, so that Bauer had to give Helen the full account as near as he could of Clifford's part in the rescue.

"It's a wonderful land! I wish such things would happen in Milton! And, oh, look at those colours! Was anything ever like them!" Helen exclaimed as the wagons came up out of the river bed and in full view of the painted desert as it stretched out in its weird, fascinating beauty. "Oh, I just can't contain it all!"

"You remind me," said Clifford who was driving, and now gave the horses a free rein on a hard 'dobe stretch, "of a young lady who was writing letters home from her first trip abroad for the use of the county paper. She said, when she was in Venice, 'Last night I lay in a gondola in the Grand Canal, drinking it all in, and life never seemed so full before.'" Clifford winked at Bauer who was on the front seat with him, and Helen, who was not yet used to Elijah Clifford's ways, at first turned red and looked vexed, but afterwards laughed with the rest.

"Well, if your young lady was here she would have to say the same thing about all this. I never had any thought that a desert was like this. I supposed it was just nothing but sand spread out on a flat surface. But look at those flowers! Did you ever see anything more delicate for colour and form?"

"Most people think that way about the desert," said Clifford. "There are more than sixty distinct varieties of vegetation this side of the river between here and Red Stone Tank. Mr. Bauer can tell you the names of some of 'em. He has begun to make a collection."

Bauer modestly replied in answer to a question from Helen that he had classified only a few distinct species that he had found in his short strolls from the Mission. He had the book with his things at Tolchaco and would show it to her when they came back.

"I didn't know you cared for Botany," said Helen a little flippantly. "I supposed you were all absorbed in your inventions."

Bauer's face changed colour slightly.

"I have always enjoyed God's earth," he said. "Anything that grows is always more wonderful than anything that has to be made."

"I should think this would be a good place to try your incubator, it's so hot," said Helen, feeling that she had made a foolish remark, but letting it go rather than try to apologise to Bauer for her poor judgment of him.

"Oh, say, tell us about that incubator," said Clifford. "Must be a lot of money in a thing like that. I believe we could use some of 'em out here to good advantage and make something for the Mission. There's a great demand for broilers at Flagstaff, and the Harvey eating houses would give us big money for any quantity of either eggs or young chickens. If we could only educate 'em to live on sand and cactus. Trouble is, feed is so high and we're so used to eating up everything, that there ain't anything left over from meals, to give to chickens. I suppose there ain't any way to fatten chickens without feeding 'em."

When Clifford spoke of Bauer's invention as a money maker, Helen was reminded again of what she had almost forgotten, that Bauer had lost the largest part of his profits from the sale of the patent rights.

Walter had written home about Bauer's father returning a part of what he had stolen, and of Bauer's quiet acceptance of the event. Helen, as she caught the look on his face whenever he partly turned about to speak to those on the seat behind, could not help feeling a real interest in him——if only he were not so plain looking, and so serious and above all, so poor, and so destined to remain poor. No; she shut her eyes, opened them again, looked at Bauer pensively, shook her head as if in answer to a question, and then with a feeling of determination turned her attention to the remarkable land through which the party was travelling.

The sky was cloudless. The heat was dry and penetrating, and as the forenoon wore away everyone grew thirsty. The cloth covered canteens were called for often. At noon the wagons drew together and camped for dinner. Two of the wagons were driven up side by side about ten feet apart and the horses unhitched and hobbled. A spare canvas was drawn over the tops of the two wagons to make shade for the dinner party. Clifford, who acted as cook on camping out occasions, dug a hole in the sand, filled it with dowegie roots and started his fire and in what seemed an incredibly short time to the visitors from Milton a hearty meal was ready. The Indians and their helpers squatted around on rugs within the circle, Mr. Masters asked grace in a delightful tone of genuine thanksgiving and added a few words in Navajo in which Peshlekietsetti and the young Indians joined.

"This what I call the real thing," said Paul, as he helped himself to his fourth sandwich and passed his cup for the third time for coffee.

"Yes, these are real sandwiches all right," said Clifford as he turned over some pancakes which were cooking on a flat stone. "Anyone else want a hot one made by the slab artist?"

Walter expressed a desire for one and politely handed it over to Miss Gray. Clifford looked at him a moment and then at Miss Gray, who was smiling her thanks.

"How's the batter?" he said to Walter.

"Good," said Walter who seemed in unusual spirits. "It's equal to a home run with the bases all full."

"Do you think it needs to be any thicker?"

"No. It's thick enough," said Walter with his eyes on Miss Gray.

"Yes, what did I tell you," muttered Clifford to Bauer when an hour later he and the German student were alone and out of ear shot from the rest of the campers. Bauer had offered to help Clifford wash the dishes at a water hole some hundred yards from the camp. "What did I tell you? It's just as I said. Miss Gray has 'em all going. Cowboys, Indian traders, missionaries, visitors, everybody. Now it's your friend Douglas. He's a goner so soon. You watch when the wagons load up if he don't manage to sit with Miss Gray. He's lost and there's no use sending out an expedition to find him. He doesn't want to be found. And the mystery of it is Miss Gray never tries. She just simply looks at you and it's all over."

Bauer was amused and perplexed at Clifford's absolutely frank confidence. There was nothing flippant about it either. It was the simple expression of a nature that had nothing to conceal. There was not even a hint of gossip about it, nor of ill nature. In a land where there were no newspapers, telegraphs, telephones, railroads, or neighbours, it seemed like the expression of a confidence which had in it neither malice nor impertinent coarseness. And yet Bauer was puzzled to know what Clifford's real feeling was towards Miss Gray even after Clifford's own open statement made to him that day while they were sitting on the old cottonwood by the river.

When the party started on again after a two hours' rest, Clifford nudged Bauer to call attention to the fact that Walter and Miss Gray were in the back seat of the chuck wagon in front of them. But he never mentioned the matter again during the day, and until they reached the night camping place he was alive with stories and information about the desert, the Indians, the habits of the horses, the work of the Mission and the coming snake dance.

The place chosen for the first night's camp was the Red Stone Tanks. This consisted of a pool of tepid water and a few rocks, from the crevices of which a straggling fringe of desert cedars was trying to grow.

Camp was made here by pitching one of the big tents for the women. A big fire of roots was started after the supper had been eaten, and when they were all seated in the circle about the fire, Mr. Masters began a story.

Gradually as he went on with the old, old story of the lost sheep, figures stole up around the fire. Paul, who with Esther and all the rest was simply fascinated with the entire surroundings, although he did not understand a word Masters was speaking, was startled as he looked around and saw a dozen dark faces of young men and boys. They had risen out of the desert barrenness and gloom, the sudden twilight, and silently appeared. When the camp was chosen there was not a hogan or a living creature anywhere in sight. But all of these quiet visitors knew that the mission party was on the way to Oraibi and some of them had been riding all day to meet Mr. and Mrs. Masters at this point.

When the story was finished, Miss Gray started a hymn, "The Ninety and Nine." She sang with a low soft voice, almost talking the words, but old Peshlekietsetti sitting by Mr. Clifford bent over his knees gravely watching the singer's face and listening intently for every word, and when she was through, he asked a question of Mr. Masters.

"The old man wants to know," said Masters after one or two more questions had been asked, "how it happened that the sheep got lost and if it was its own fault or the fault of someone who should have been looking after it. That isn't a bad question to come from the old fellow. His theology isn't half so much at fault as that of some theological seminary professors I know, who teach that sin is nothing but a disease and that nobody in particular is to blame for it. If he had to live out here awhile instead of in his little upholstered study at the seminary, he would change his definition."

The evening was spent about the fire with songs and conversation, largely between Paul and Mr. Masters concerning the Navajo characteristics. The last thing Bauer could remember as he lay under his rug looking up at the stars, was the sight of old Peshlekietsetti throwing a handful of dry roots on the fire as he sat bowed over his knees, the fire flame gleaming red on his grave and dignified face.

He wakened early, as he had of late been doing, and sat up, noting the sleeping figures in a circle about the ashes of the fire, and as his look travelled on past them he noted out by the edge of the Black Gorge through which they were to travel that day, a solitary figure sitting on one of the curious rocks that framed a sort of gateway to the diminutive canyon. Even at that distance he could distinguish the form of Elijah Clifford, although he had already noticed that Clifford's rug and rubber blanket, which had been spread out by his own, had been folded up and tied ready for the day's trip.

Before the rest of the sleepers had stirred, Clifford came back to the spot and began with the noiseless rapidity of an Indian to build the fire in the sand preparatory to the breakfast, talking in a soft voice to Bauer, as if Bauer had asked him a question, although Bauer had not said a word except "Good-morning," when Clifford cheerfully greeted him.

"You see, I used to work on a daily paper in Kansas City before I was converted and it seems to me now that I spend most of my time trying to catch up with the day after to-morrow. I never had any leisure, never went to church, never opened a Bible and never talked with myself. Since I came out here I've had the time of my life in not only talking with myself but———" He glanced at Bauer wistfully as he put some stones around the hole and set his coffee pot down on the sand, "but I never saw such a place as a desert to find God. It seems as if this was the place to find him. You know Moses and Elijah and David and Paul and John and lots of men found God in the wilderness. I suppose you could find him while working for a daily paper, but He didn't seem to have much to do with the one I was on. At any rate I never found Him there. That's the reason I like to get up early. There's a time in the morning between four and five out here, when it appears to me God has more time to tend to individuals. Most everybody is asleep soundest about that time and He can pay attention better to the comparatively few folks that don't need so much rest."—Elijah said it as if to apologise for the habits of the rest of the party and Bauer could not help smiling at his note of evident haste not to take too much credit to himself for early rising. "I thought maybe you might kind of wonder at my ways, and think maybe I got up to write poetry or some such stuff. I believe you understand, eh?"

"I believe I do," said Bauer gravely. "And I appreciate your confidence. I know what it means to try to find God in a crowd. I think that is one reason Jesus had to leave the multitude and go out into the desert places."

"Yes," said Clifford, sitting down on the sand and putting his coffee pot on a stone. "I didn't mention Him. I thought you would remember that yourself."

This little glimpse into Elijah Clifford's personality did Bauer a world of good and strengthened a growing liking for him which led in the process of time, as this story goes on, to some very important results in Bauer's life.

The day promised to be unusually hot and it was Masters's plan to get through the Black Gorge canyon early, as it was famous for its stifling heat and dust storms later in the day. So camp was broken immediately after breakfast and the wagons were soon loaded with the bedding and dishes and the journey resumed in the same order, so far as the travellers were concerned, as before. Mr. Masters, who knew the trail at the other end of the gorge better than anyone else, went first with Mrs. Masters, Miss Clifford, Miss Gray and Walter and Clifford with Mr. Douglas, Mrs. Douglas, Helen, and Bauer followed, Peshlekietsetti and the heavy wagon trailing along in the rear.

Just as they were entering the Gorge, Clifford turned and looked back towards the camp. Out across the Red Rock elevation he pointed out three black specks. Looking at them through the mission field glass, a former gift from Mr. Douglas, he announced them to be probably three wagons with tourists from Canyon Diablo bound for the snake dance.

"May be your friend from Pittsburgh, Van Shaw, is in that outfit," he said to Bauer.

Bauer did not reply. He hoped Van Shaw would not meet Walter or any of their party. There was no reason why he should, but every time he thought of Van Shaw he felt uncomfortable, something in him rose up nearest to a feeling of hate and disgust he had ever known.

Clifford faced around and resumed the driving. He noted as he turned into the opening that Peshlekietsetti had stopped just outside to strap on one of the water barrels more securely, but seeing that he did not ask for any help he drove on into the Gorge.

The Gorge was weirdly irregular and the windings of the road were so many that very soon the wagons were all separated from view of one another.

In this volcanic land one could not account for the fantastic and even monstrous shapes of cliff and ledge and overhanging rock masses without calling up some gigantic upheaval of all nature's vast play of forces; earthquakes, fire, volcano, flood, wind, sand spouts of enormous height and velocity, one after the other all these elemental storms must have rocked and heaved and rent and tortured the earth and after all had passed by, the hurricane of volcanic fire and missiles must have scattered the debris of high mountains twisted into lumps of matter, varying in size from a sky scraper to a comma.

It began and ended abruptly, as if in a freak of the upheaval a tornado had picked up the end of a canyon somewhere, turned it over several times in transit and finally dropped it bottom side up on the desert, breaking it open when it fell and letting the fragments bump around like the pounded rock in a concrete mixer.

In among these boulders Elijah Clifford guided the team, exercising all his skill, for one of the horses was partly mustang, full of unused energy, and Mr. Masters had chosen the trip to Oraibi to give the animal some necessary training, trusting in Clifford's love of horses and his special characteristic of carefulness to avoid any accidents. And all would have gone well if the unforeseen and unavoidable had not occurred.

They were almost out of the gorge and Clifford had started to reply to a question of Paul's concerning the nature of the rocks which were different in colour on one side of the canyon from the other, when the mustang shied in a perfectly excusable manner at a cedar stump which hung out from a ledge so close that it almost scraped the frightened animal. Before Clifford could get the team back into the narrow road the front wheel struck a big stone. The jolt flung the pole with a jerk against the mustang. He reared up and slewed around, unhitching one of his tugs. Even then Clifford might have saved the situation if one of the reins had not broken. But when that snapped it was a hopeless task. Before any of the party knew what to do the now maddened team was thrashing up the gorge. The result was only a question of the law, if there is any, of accidents. Nobody ever knew just what did happen in detail. Paul and Esther said afterwards that they jumped, although they had always said they never would jump out of a runaway wagon. Helen clung terrified to her seat until the hind wheel on her side of the wagon was splintered and the wagon box fell down and she found herself flung up against the bank. Clifford jumped for one of the horse's backs, hoping to stop them by reaching their bridles, but his foot caught on the dashboard and he fell, just missing the wheels as he rolled down the trail. Bauer was the only one to remain in the wagon. Just as Clifford made his unsuccessful leap the tongue snapped. The horses tore themselves loose from the wrecked wagon and swept in a frenzy of fear through the gorge, banging the fragments of tongue, whiffletrees and harness about them, and what was left of the wagon came to a stop between two big boulders, with Bauer clinging to the front seat with white strained face wondering if the rest of them were all killed.

Clifford picked himself up and came limping along to where Paul and Esther were sitting. He was all right himself excepting a few minor bruises and was overjoyed to find that Mr. and Mrs. Douglas had escaped serious injury. But when the three of them came to Helen they found her almost in a swoon.

"I think I sprained my ankle," she said with a faint attempt at a smile.

"Thank God we are not all killed!" exclaimed Esther, but before she could say another word Helen had fainted. Her father and mother were busy over her, Bauer had run up with a water canteen and Clifford was ruefully regarding the wreck of the wagon when the sound of wheels was heard.

"There's Peshlekietsetti," he said. "We'll have to put Miss Helen in the chuck wagon. But how on earth are we going to get to Oraibi now?"

A large wagon turned the bend and the driver pulled up sharply. It was not Peshlekietsetti, but the tourist party from Canyon Diablo. Bauer, as he anxiously stood by Mrs. Douglas trying to restore Helen, was conscious that a group of astonished and interested tourists had climbed down from the wagon and had come up to the scene of the accident. As he looked up he saw Van Shaw and heard him say, "Why, hello, Bauer! Didn't expect to see you here. Had bad accident, haven't you? Anything we can do to help?"



CHAPTER XIV

"IT'S very kind of you, and———" Mr. Douglas began. It is astonishing how commonplace most people are in moments of accident. Paul had never seen Van Shaw, did not know him in the least and simply saw a good-looking young man dressed in a serviceable camping suit, who had appeared at a moment when help of some kind was imperatively needed. "You seem to be acquainted, Felix. One of your classmates at Burrton? Oh, you're the Pittsburgh party?"

Felix hesitated and Van Shaw saved him the trouble of an introduction.

"Yes, I'm Van Shaw, you know. Our outfit can take care of everything without any trouble. Mr. Douglas of Milton? You're with the Tolchaco party, aren't you? Yes, we'll be glad to be of service."

Van Shaw's glance travelled to Helen, who after a brave effort to keep from fainting again, had finally succumbed and lay back against the bank. Her mother was calm, and although this was the first time in all Helen's life that she had ever shown any such physical yielding to pain, Esther accepted the situation, and with Paul's help did the only thing obvious and soon had the girl resting, after the fainting spell, in one of the chuck wagons belonging to Van Shaw's party.

After that, events seemed to follow in a natural sequence, that could not reasonably have occurred in any other way. The frightened horses soon overtook and ran into the wagon in front. Masters and Walter caught them and as soon as possible came running back up the gorge, panting and fearful. Their surprise and relief when they learned that no one was seriously injured were great. The broken wagon was, however, such a wreck, that not even Elijah Clifford's ingenuity could repair it sufficiently for use, and with the exception of a few serviceable pieces, it was left behind. The two parties brought together by the quick process of accident, at last continued the journey in company, but for Felix Bauer a cloud had come up over the clear sky of his pleasure. He had never been able to endure Van Shaw, and it was exasperating to him and annoying to Walter to be under any obligations to one who, back in the old school, had moved in another circle and lived according to other moral codes.

Van Shaw on meeting Walter had simply said, "Hello, Douglas! Great place this old desert, hey?" He did not wait for Walter to say anything but rattled on. "This snake dance we're going to is said to be a corker. It's a beastly old distance to come to see it. I don't mind. But the camp grub gets the mater pretty bad."

The other members in the Pittsburgh party were Van Shaw's mother, just referred to as "mater," his aunt, a Mrs. Waldron, two young men, friends of Van Shaw, Mrs. Waldron's two nieces, and a cook and three drivers. They had fitted out at Canyon Diablo and crossed the Little Colorado at the upper ford, several hours after the Tolchaco party had passed, but owing to better equipment in the matter of horses and wagons they had overtaken the latter just as Touchiniteel and his two Indians had entered the gorge.

By noon the wagons were all out of the gorge and in full view of the Crested Buttes. Helen was resting as well as could be expected but was evidently in great pain. Masters, who was something of a doctor and surgeon, did the best he could with the simple remedies he carried, but declared the sprain to be a very serious one, and at a little consultation held at lunch time, the feasibility of abandoning the trip and turning back to Tolchaco on account of Helen's condition was discussed.

When Helen heard of it she emphatically objected.

"I won't listen to such a thing. I'm very comfortable. I don't want the rest of you to lose the enjoyment of the trip on my account. The only thing that worries me is the fear I am causing trouble to these other people."

The "other people," represented by Van Shaw and the young men friends, were near the chuck wagon when Helen made this last remark. Van Shaw hastened to assure her that no one was put out in the least by her presence there.

"I don't feel sure of that. It seems to me that more than one person must have been 'put out' of here when I was put in. I take up a great deal of room and I am sure there were some seats in this wagon."

Van Shaw protested that his party had two extra saddle horses and that as for himself he preferred to walk. He needed the exercise.

The other young men joined in gallantly. Miss Douglas was free to ride in any or all of the wagons as long as she chose.

Helen smiled at all of them impartially and expressed her thanks to Van Shaw in particular. Felix Bauer who with Walter was standing in the group with the rest during this little conversation, wondered for the first time in his life if Helen Douglas was a coquette. If she knew Van Shaw as well as he and Walter knew him would she smile so sweetly at him, and on such brief acquaintance? To Felix Bauer the whole thing was incomprehensible. Even allowing something for the swiftness with which acquaintances can be made in the desert during a camping experience, especially under circumstances favoured by such an accident as had occurred, it still was not seemly that a girl like Helen Douglas should even in the slightest degree encourage the attention of fellows like Van Shaw.

Felix was so disturbed by his own feelings over the affair that during the whole of the afternoon he avoided the wagon where Helen was. Once, however, as he looked back, to his indignant surprise he noted Van Shaw driving the team and turning about from time to time as if to converse with Helen, who was lying on a camp bed under the canopy cover which had been pulled back, on account of the heat, so as to allow Helen a glance now and then of some passing point of interest. Once Felix was sure he heard her laugh at some remark made by Van Shaw in comment perhaps on Touchiniteel's curious sailor made costume.

As soon as he could get a chance to speak to Walter, Felix gave voice to his feelings, for the time being entirely forgetful of the very important fact that up to this time he had never by word or look betrayed to Walter his feeling for his sister.

"Do you see that?" he spoke to Walter as they walked along together a little distance from the wagons. The men had nearly all got down to walk over a piece of particularly hard going for the teams.

Walter looked over in the direction of Helen where Bauer was looking as he spoke, and shrugged his shoulders.

"Yes, but what of it?"

"You know Van Shaw?"

"Well, I don't like it, of course, but Helen is old enough to look out for herself."

"Do you mean that you are willing to have her become friendly with him?" said Felix, his simple clean mind horrified at the apparent indifference of Walter to Van Shaw's general looseness of moral habits as they knew him in Burrton.

"Well, what can I do?" said Walter with some show of irritation. "Do you want me to go back there, politely ask Van Shaw to stop the team, and say to Helen in his hearing: 'Dear sister, the young man who is amusing you so finely this afternoon is the son of the greatest and most notorious railroad wrecker in America. He himself is known in the school at Burrton as the fastest and most vulgar youth in the institution. He drinks, he gambles, he is famous for the number of indecent stories he can tell, he has his rooms adorned with pictures of variety actresses, he has no high aims in life and never earned a cent since he was born, although he spends several thousands of dollars every year which his father makes for him by ruining other people. In short, sister, he is the last young man in all the universe with whom I, your brother, would desire you to become acquainted. Therefore, I am going to ask Mr. Van Shaw to wait until with the help of Mr. Bauer who knows all these facts about Mr. Van Shaw as well as I do, we transfer you from this wagon to one of ours, although owing to our comparative poverty as measured by this Pittsburgh outfit our wagons are not at all fitted to carry beautiful young ladies who have sustained severe ankle sprains.' Do you want me to go over to Van Shaw and get off a speech like that in order to save Helen?"

Bauer stared at Walter in solemn surprise. Then to Walter's surprise he said curtly:

"Every word of it is true."

"Yes, but you can't always say everything that's true. I wish for the life of me that Van Shaw had never put in an appearance. It has spoiled the trip for me. Besides, you never can tell what a girl will do. They're all romantic and above all, unreasonable. Van Shaw is good looking and he's got money coming to him like the sand of this desert. And I don't forget a story Clifford was telling us this morning. It was about some American girl very much like Helen, in a book, who said to another girl that all she wanted of a husband in New York was a man to go down town in the morning to earn enough money for her to spend up town in the afternoon."

"You don't mean to say that your sister has any such ambition as that, do you?" asked Felix even slower than usual.

Walter looked at him curiously.

"You don't know Helen very well. She is very ambitious, and she has great respect for wealth. She thinks money can do most anything in this old world. There's no telling what Helen will do when it comes to marrying. I can't imagine her marrying a poor man."

"I would rather see her married to Touchiniteel than to Van Shaw!" said Bauer with a savage outburst that accelerated his speech and changed his entire countenance.

Walter looked at Felix again, with the same curious regard.

"You seem to be a good deal disturbed over the matter, old man. What difference does it make to you whether Helen marries Van Shaw or Touchiniteel?"

Bauer turned his face toward Walter with a look Walter never forgot. They were walking near one of the old ruins of an abandoned village. Pieces of broken pottery and grinders were littered over the ground. Felix motioned to Walter to go farther up into the mound where these ruins were scattered.

"We can catch up with the teams. The folks will think we are looking for specimens," he said. Walter anticipated Bauer's story as he sat down by him and in the midst of an ancient cliff dwellers century old debris of a home, heard his chum's simple story. After it was told in Bauer's slow but in this case intense manner, Walter said:

"I'm awfully sorry, old man; but I don't believe you stand a ghost of a chance with Helen."

"I don't suppose I do," assented Bauer humbly. "But you can see now why I feel as I do and what it means to me to see a fellow like Van Shaw with her. It is not only torture to me. I think some one ought to tell her."

"Tell her what?"

"About Van Shaw. Such men have no business to make love to pure girls like Helen."

Walter remonstrated.

"It's absurd, Felix. He isn't making love to her. Nonsense."

"He is!" said Bauer with a passionate burst that astonished Walter. "You do not know him as well as I do. I am acquainted with Van Shaw's history through the Raines-Bracken affair. You were not at Burrton when that happened. Nothing but the fear of losing some of old Van Shaw's legacies to the school prevented young Van Shaw's expulsion at the time. I can't go into the affair, Walter, but it gave me a loathing for Van Shaw that I never can overcome. It isn't because I feel holier than thou or anything like that; God knows I am in need of his great forgiveness; but it seems as wrong for us to leave your sister unacquainted with the real character of Van Shaw as it would to let her play with one of these rattlesnakes we are going to see in Oraibi the day after to-morrow, not knowing how deadly they were."

"Who'll tell her? Will you?"

"I? How can I do it. No. But it would seem quite the thing for you or your mother———"

"Mother doesn't know him," Walter interrupted somewhat curtly. "I don't see how I can say anything," Walter went on, with the caution many school boys feel about telling on others. "I really believe Helen is capable of protecting herself. And one of the quickest ways to get a girl interested in a man is to hint that he is not as good as he might be."

"That's your philosophy imbibed from your six best sellers," retorted Felix. Walter was a constant novel reader. "I am going to have a talk with your mother about the whole affair. She will know what to do."

"Will you tell her how you feel about Helen?"

Felix winced.

"She knows already."

"Oh, you have told her."

"No, she knows without my telling."

"Have you spoken to Helen?"

The colour swept up over Bauer's face.

"No, and I never will."

"Does she know?" Walter persisted.

"I looked at her once," faltered Bauer, and for the soul of him Walter could not help roaring out at him.

As they rose to make their way to the wagons which had halted in a group to wait for them and others who had fallen behind, Walter smote Bauer on the back.

"Courage, old man. The case is not all hopeless. If you have got as far as a look, that's progress. What did Helen do?"

But Bauer drew into his reserve at this point and gravely refused to talk any more, and Walter did not venture to insist. Only, as they were going to their wagons Bauer simply said, "I shall tell your mother. It would not be right not to let her know."

"I don't know what mother can do about it," Walter replied dubiously.

"Mrs. Douglas is very wise." said Bauer. To that Walter made no answer, and they joined the rest of the party without further words.

That night the two camps were pitched close together, and two fires burned like red specks in the holes dug for the sagebrush and cedar roots. The chuck wagon in which Helen had been riding was left standing close by the tent pitched for her mother and Mrs. Masters. She seemed unusually cheerful and in answer to many inquiries assured all that she was resting easily and was nearly free from pain.

After the camp meal was over and the desert grey of the soft night had begun to wrap itself like an enveloping cloak about the two camps, as quietly and without warning of their presence natives of that weird tract of earth began to appear. When the camp was made there was not a hogan or any form of human habitation to be seen. But as Paul came back to the fire circle after helping Masters pitch the last of the tents he was astonished to see a dozen Indians, mostly young men, sitting on the sand close by. Masters spoke a word to them when he came up to the fire and one of the men answered briefly.

"They have come all the way from Leupp," he said to Paul. "Walked the entire distance of sixty-seven miles since sunrise."

"Do you know any of them?" Paul asked curiously.

"Yes, I have met one of the young men at Shungapavi. They are all going up to see the snake dance. It's the only feature about the Hopi that appeals to them."

Miss Gray began to sing; it seemed to Walter who was sitting on the Navajo blanket near her that he had never heard a voice of just that particular quality. It fitted into the surroundings wonderfully. The dusky faces with the inevitable head-cloth of red or white were intent on hers, and when the song ceased and Walter looked up and around he saw the members of the other camp had come over and were standing or sitting about. Among the faces that were most noticeable to Walter was Van Shaw's. He was standing almost directly opposite Miss Gray staring at her with a strange look as if he were in doubt of the reality of Miss Gray's presence in this group. It seemed to Walter that he was about to ask a question, but Masters, who at campfire was always intent on bringing his Gospel message to the miscellaneous audience he might not see again in many months, began to speak softly and affectionately.

The visitors from the outside world, including the party from Pittsburgh, could not understand one word. It was not that that moved them. But Masters was gifted with a splendid voice in full control. After he had been speaking ten minutes the figures about the little fire crept closer up and narrowed the circle. Masters's face was eloquent. Tears rolled down his cheeks. His gestures were wide and conveyed tender invitation. He spoke only a few moments more and ended abruptly. Old Peshlekietsetti gently dropped a root of dowegie bush on the almost extinct fire. The coals burst into a new flame and the light flared up again, showing to Felix, Helen's wondering face framed in the opening fold of the wagon cover, while Mrs. Douglas close by her was listening with sympathetic attention deepened into reverent surprise when Elijah Clifford with his hands over his knees, his head bowed, prayed the evening prayer in a spirit that seemed to proclaim another man from the one they had known during the day. And then another hymn in which all were asked by Miss Gray to join. It all smote Felix with a feeling of wonder, it was so new and unusual to his experience. But to Masters and Miss Gray and Clifford it was the regular daily habit of their lives, as common and necessary to them as it was for the tourist crowd looking on to close the day's life with a heavy dinner of seven courses and bridge whist into the next morning. The last glimpse Walter had of Van Shaw as he moved off towards his own wagons was the look he cast at Miss Gray again and then transferred to the canvas that covered the chuck wagon where Helen and her mother sat talking over the strange events of the day and its strange ending.

The next day was a severe experience for old desert travellers. The wind blew almost a gale. The sand drifted like snow and the mid day meal was taken standing, everyone eating as best he could, standing up, and making no attempt at the setting of a table or the formality of a regular meal.

Late in the afternoon the grey rock of Oraibi showed through the whistling sand storm. The wagons halted a little while by the Oraibi Wash before making the last miles through the difficult sand hillocks at the foot of the cliff. And it was during this resting period that word came to Masters from one of the Hopis who had a corn field on the Wash that recent rains at Oraibi had so damaged the wagon trial leading to the top that it would be impossible to drive up. All visitors and tourists must walk up the foot trail.

"That means that Helen can't get to the village. It will be a great disappointment," said Mrs. Douglas.

It was on the tongue of Felix Bauer to suggest a plan for carrying Helen up the trail on one of the camp cots when Van Shaw struck in.

"Pardon me, Mrs. Douglas, but it will be an easy thing to carry Miss Douglas up the trail on a camp cot. Four of us can do it easily. Just put some tent poles under the sides and let the two behind rest the poles on their shoulders and the two in front carry lower. In that way I'm sure we can get Miss Douglas to the top without any inconvenience to her. It would be a shame to come all this distance and eat all this dirt and miss the real thing after all."

"I don't want to miss it, of course," Helen faltered, looking at the group of young men, Walter, Felix, Van Shaw and his two friends. "But I'm giving a lot of trouble and I'm afraid I'm a nuisance."

"Then we will abate it by carrying you up there," said Van Shaw smiling, and Helen smiled back at him, to Felix Bauer's rage. The whole thing was getting to be torture to him. And it all intensified his determination to have a plain talk with Mrs. Douglas. The opportunity for it was not easy. Mrs. Douglas was close by Helen nearly every moment. The camp duties were many and the little company was of necessity grouped close together during the march. But Bauer with his regular stock of dogged patience bided his time, sure it would come.

Camp was pitched that night at the foot of the Oraibi trail. Almost as soon as the wagons were located Van Shaw came over to Mrs. Douglas carrying a cot.

"We've got an extra cot, Mrs. Douglas, and it won't take any time to fix that litter. We can use some of our tent poles. I'll be glad to fix the thing up in the morning."

Mrs. Douglas thanked him quietly, and Helen expressed her gratitude.

"Oh, I wouldn't miss seeing the sight to-morrow for anything. Isn't it wonderful. That rock? How weird it all is. Why, you can hardly tell where the rock begins and the houses leave off. Just to think of seven or eight hundred people living up there all these centuries keeping up these queer customs. And oh, look! What is that?"

A line of Indian women filed past up the trail about twenty-five feet apart, each one carrying on her back a large clay water jar. They did not walk, they trotted along in a tireless steady stride that spoke of centuries of training before them. The weight of the jars was not far from thirty pounds.

Masters was passing Helen's wagon.

"That's woman's rights," he said gravely. "The water supply at Oraibi for centuries has been jars on the backs of women. You must get used to thinking of seven hundred people dependent on the daily trips of these women for all the water used on top of that rock for washing, cooking, drinking. The women of Oraibi also have the right of building the houses the men live in. They are the masons, while the men are the dressmakers. And there are people who would like to keep these women perpetually at these tasks, they say it so 'picturesque.'"

"I was just going to say that myself," said Helen.

Masters smiled sadly. "Look at the mothers in Oraibi to-morrow. See what heathenism has done for them." He passed on and Van Shaw who had stared at Masters as he spoke said to Helen—"They're queer beggars, ain't they. But I don't believe in trying to change them. They belong here. Might as well let 'em go on the way they've been going the last thousand years."

Helen looked at him with the first feeling she had had of possible distrust or dislike. Van Shaw had spoken just as he really felt, and Helen saw a brief ways into his real character. But as she looked again at the winding figures steadily trotting up the steep path, she had a momentary doubt in her own mind as to the ultimate wisdom of Masters and Clifford in trying to change the century old customs and habits of these desert people.

The day of the snake dance at Oraibi dawned strangely with a heavy shower.

"They're getting their answer to their prayer before they offer it," said Mr. Douglas to Clifford as they sat up on their rugs and listened to the downpour on the tent.

"It has no effect on them," replied Clifford. "The snake dance means a prayer for rain for the whole season. This rain the poor devils believe is an answer to their prayer made two years ago. It's a little late in getting here but every drop of water between the two dances is so accounted for."

By the middle of the forenoon it had cleared up and the two parties, increased by other tourist crowds that had come in during the night, proceeded to climb the trail into Oraibi.

Van Shaw and his two friends in spite of the rain had got up early and finished making the litter. When the moment came for Helen to be transferred to it there was an embarrassing halt and the young men eyed one another. Felix was determined to be one of the carriers and Walter was bound to be another. Van Shaw seemed to take for granted that as he was the one who had suggested the affair he should be another. The two friends from Pittsburgh protested that they would be desolate if not allowed to help.

Felix and Walter had gone to the head of the cot and seized the ends of the tent poles and Van Shaw had stepped up to one of the poles at the other end when Esther, who perhaps sensed some electricity in the air not caused by the recent thunder storm, said to Paul:

"You take hold with Mr. Van Shaw, Paul, and let Mr. Coleman and Mr. Calder take their turn later. The trail looks very steep. I'm sure you will need to be relieved occasionally."

They started accordingly and Helen laughingly complimented her cavaliers as they picked up the cot and after several trials discovered the most effective way of handling it.

The trail was bounded on one side by the Oraibi cemetery. The recent rains had washed some of the bodies out of their graves made in the loose gravel of the steep hill. The trail wound up sharply, disclosing at every turn some new marvel of the limitless expanse below. A Hopi came out on a ledge far above them and chanted his song to the sun. Every step brought the party nearer the queer built houses and the kivas with their projecting ladders. Other visitors and tourists were on the trail in front and the progress was slow. Several stops were made and changes occurred in the order of carriers, but when the top of the rock was reached, Masters, who with Mrs. Masters and Miss Gray were close behind the litter, suddenly exclaimed, "There is Talavenka!" pointing to the roof of the first house fronting the trail. A Hopi maiden, distinguished by her whorl of hair as unmarried, stood up by the ladder, smiling down at the party.

Mrs. Douglas, who was walking with Mrs. Masters and who had during the trip heard of this one Christian Hopi, went over to the foot of the ladder with her. Paul, who was tremendously interested in all sorts of Indian lore, went into the house to examine some wedding baskets. The two Pittsburgh young men suddenly found themselves surrounded with an Indian group selling curios, Walter sauntered over in the direction of Miss Gray to ask her about the kivas. Felix stayed jealously for a while by Helen who was simply carried away with the wonderful sights all about her, but looking over in Mrs. Douglas's direction and seeing her for a moment alone, thought his opportunity to speak to her ought to be seized at once, and went over towards her. And so it happened naturally enough that for a moment Helen and Van Shaw were left together. The crowd of tourists, curious, chattering, laughing, careless, flowed up the trail past them and began scattering over the village seeking curios and poking their heads into the doors of the little houses. The sun flamed out in a clear blue sky, the grey rock turned red under its hot stroke, and Helen, who lay restfully on her litter which had been placed on top of one of the kivas, indulged her romance loving spirit to the full as she lay there almost forgetful of Van Shaw's presence until she was startled out of her day dream by his voice as he moved from where he had been standing and came and sat down on the edge of the kiva near her.



CHAPTER XV

"MISS DOUGLAS, I haven't had half a chance to talk to you and you'll forgive me, won't you, if I take advantage of this moment."

Helen was not in the slightest degree prepared for what Van Shaw was going to say. She was conscious, as every beautiful young woman must be, of her charms and of the effect of them on the young men she met, but she would have been a most remarkably vain and shallow person if she had ever imagined for herself such a scene as the one now being acted out on the top of the rock at Oraibi. The wildest stretch of her romantic temperament had never carried her so far, and when she first began to really grasp the sense of what Van Shaw was saying she was frightened and angry. At the same time there was a certain feeling of pride and exultation of which she was vaguely ashamed.

Helen quietly began to say some simple thing in reply to Van Shaw's first remark when he hurriedly went on, interrupting her:

"I won't have much time to speak now, but I'm going to risk everything, and tell you. I just can't keep it to myself. It may sound awfully absurd to you,—I suppose it does, but I can't help it. I'm just simply dead in love with you and I want you to know that I———"