"What!" said Helen sharply. She was so disturbed, so confused in her mind that Van Shaw's words seemed unreal, as unreal as the kiva on which she was sitting or the changing groups of vivid colour moving about on the tops of the houses.

"I can't help it," Van Shaw began again hurriedly, "You do not know how fascinating you are. It has just swept me off my feet."

This time Helen understood what Van Shaw was saying and her face was flooded with a swift wave of colour. And she said coldly:

"You have no right to talk to me like that. I will not listen." She turned her head and saw her mother just coming out of Talavenka's house, standing at the foot of the ladder as if preparing to go up with Mrs. Masters to the house roof.

"Mother!" she called, in a dim way thinking of nothing except her desire somehow to escape a very embarrassing scene with Van Shaw. But there was so much noise made by the clattering groups of tourists and the sudden arrival of new comers that Mrs. Douglas did not hear. Besides at that moment Helen saw Bauer speaking to her and the next moment he and her mother had walked slowly off together up the tortuous village street and were lost to sight in the crowd.

Van Shaw sat down on the kiva, and smiled a little. But his face was pale, and evidently for one of the rare occasions in his life he was truly and desperately in earnest.

"You can't blame me, can you?"

"It's—it's simply impossible. It's out of the question. I have not known you two days."

"It doesn't take lighting two days to hit," said Van Shaw doggedly.

"I won't listen. I forbid your talking to me," said Helen haughtily.

"All right. But you can't forbid my thinking of you."

"But I can and I will refuse to be in your company!" said Helen. She was angry now at something undefined in Van Shaw's manner. "If you do not leave me at once, I will try to leave you." She actually made a movement to rise and put her foot on the ground at the edge of the kiva. Van Shaw instantly got up and said quickly, "Of course I'll go. But I can't change my feelings and never shall. Promise me one thing. Don't believe all the stories you may hear about me."

He had turned and walked up the street and Helen sank back with a strange feeling of relief mingled with shame and again that other feeling—what was it, pride? The sense of power over men? The feeling that her beauty was a gift or something else? She was frightened at it all put together and felt irritated to be left alone by the rest of the party as she looked around at the medley of old and new jumbled together in that Hopi village. And then the next reaction left her nervous and somewhat hysterical as she tried to imagine such a thing in a book. She actually laughed and the next moment Miss Gray and Walter appeared, at the edge of the kiva. Miss Gray came running up to her.

"It's a shame to leave you here alone. How did that happen?"

"Oh, I don't know. I haven't been alone long. How strange everything is."

"Yes. And it gets stranger the more you see of it. Talavenka and her mother have asked us to eat with them. They will have something ready in about an hour. You had better go in and rest there a while. It's too hot out here. Where are your jinrikisha men?"

"Van Shaw just went up the street," said Walter looking closely at Helen.

"We don't need him," said Miss Gray. "Mr. Douglas, will you get Mr. Coleman and Mr. Calder? There they are, over there. I'll help, and we'll take Helen over to Talavenka's."

Walter went over to call the Pittsburgh young men and Miss Gray and Helen were together a moment. Helen suddenly asked:

"Do you know Mr. Van Shaw, Lucy? Didn't I hear you say to mother yesterday that he was related distantly to your mother?"

"Yes," said Miss Gray slowly. "He is. What do you want to know?"

"Anything you can tell me."

Miss Gray looked troubled.

"Are you willing to tell me why you want to know?"

Helen hesitated. Walter and the young men were approaching.

"Give me your full confidence," Miss Gray smiled at Helen. "And I will know better what to tell."

"I will when there is time for it," Helen said and that was all she could say, before she was carried into Talavenka's house.

Once inside the little square room with its corn grinding boxes taking up one whole side of it there was so much of interest that Helen let everything else wait, as she watched the preparations for the meal soon to be served. It would be several hours before the snake dance and in that time there was no likelihood that Van Shaw would try to speak to her again. She was not afraid of that, but she felt uneasy at the thought of some future scene, just what she was not clear about, but it vexed and allured her until finally the surroundings compelled all her attention and drove everything else out of her imagination.

Her father and mother, Mr. and Mrs. Masters and Miss Gray were invited with her to the mid day meal in the house. The rest of the Tolchaco party ate out of doors on the platform by the door. There was boiled mutton, red, white and blue wafer bread made of corn meal that made one think he was eating wall paper, Elijah Clifford said, melons, green peas taken from a can that had a Ft. Wayne, Ind., label on it, and to Mr. and Mrs. Douglas's astonishment some delicious peaches brought by Talavenka's brother all the way from their little garden down by the Oraibi Wash. In reply to questions from Mr. Masters, who used Talavenka as interpreter, Schewingoiashchi said, as if it were an ordinary every day occurrence, that her oldest boy nineteen years old had run twenty-five miles that forenoon to get the peaches from the orchard for their anticipated guests.

About an hour before sunset they all went out to the village plaza to witness the great event of the year in Oraibi. And as long as they live they will need no photographs or pictures to make the weird scene vivid to them.

Picture a grey mass of rock rising up abruptly above the desert, bare of tree or shrub; scattered over its irregular top, blocks of two and three story stone and dried brick houses, for the most part square in outward shape, with steps on the outside built into the wall, or heavy ladders with long projecting ends resting upon platforms built in front of small square topped doorways, the roofs flat and covered with dried grasses. No stairways within these houses permitting passage from lower to upper rooms, and all built after century old architectural plans, by the hands of women. Between the blocks of irregular houses picture rectangular slabs of stone rising two feet above the ground, containing an opening in the middle out of which project high in the air the two ends of a hard-wood ladder, the rungs of which have been worn almost through by the passage of naked feet that have pressed up and down on these bits of wood for scores of years. It is not easy to imagine the real fact that down in those upstairs cellars the men of Oraibi lead their club life, weaving down there in the dim light that filters past the ladder, the rugs and belts and other material mysteriously used for religious ceremonial. And down in the snake priests' kiva, just over yonder, the venomous reptiles have been kept for weeks past in the sacrificial clay jars, out of which they have crawled during the rites of their purification and hung in twisted hissing knots out of the crevices between the sides of the kiva walls, from which places the brown hands of old Thisdoa, Talavenka's father, have only this morning taken them to put in the cottonwood booth out on the village plaza, where they are now awaiting their part in the coming ceremony. For old Thisdoa is the head priest and knows more of the mysteries of the snake nature than any being in Oraibi.

The sun is just on the edge of the desert. All traces of the morning storm are vanished. Out on the tops of the houses all about the open plaza, groups of men and women begin to appear, the unmarried girls distinguished from the married by the graceful whorls of black hair standing out in marked contrast with the two rolls that hang down past the ears of the matrons. Cowboys, Navajo horsemen, traders, all the non-acting part of Oraibi's population, tourists, photographers, visitors, crowd up in a rainbow coloured fringe about the sandy depression which now contains only one conspicuous object, the cottonwood booth or kisi, the size of a boy's wigwam, having a canvas flap on the side opening close by the broad board over which the feet of the priests will thump as they file past. A moving picture machine is installed on top of a near-by house. The Boston, New York, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Chicago tourists and newspaper men are grouped about in what they believe are advantageous positions. The costumes vary from smart tailor made dresses worn by the tourist girls from Cincinnati to a Hopi child's dress made of a piece of a gunny sack bearing the name of a Minnesota flouring mill. Over all the jumble of old and new, modern and ancient, the setting sun floods the medley of colour and language and dress and Christian and pagan. And in the stillness that waits the coming of the twenty-four priests out of the kivas, the town crier walks out on the corner of a house top and cries aloud an announcement of a service to be held that night in the little mission chapel out there on the edge of the rock.

"What's that?" asked one of the tourists near Clifford.

"That's the town crier of Oraibi," said Clifford. "There are no newspapers up here and the official village news purveyor is telling the crowd to come over to the Gospel meeting to-night. He says Mr. Masters is going to preach in three languages. Better come and hear him in one of 'em."

The tourist stares at Clifford. "Well of all the places on earth for preaching, this beats me. Do you mean to say a preacher will actually hold a service up here after this snake dance and expect to get an audience?"

"Will he?" says Clifford cheerfully. "You had better come early or you won't get a seat. And as for preaching you'll hear a better sermon than you ever heard in Cincinnati, Ohio."

"I guess that may be so," says the tourist. "For I haven't been to church since I don't know when."

"You need preaching then, like the rest of these heathen," said Clifford so simply that the Cincinnati man takes no offence but promises to go over to the service if he isn't too tired.

The rim of the sun is an hour above the horizon and the crowd has ceased its chatter. It is very quiet on the grey rock of Oraibi, although a thousand people are looking intently at the openings of the two kivas. Suddenly from the one nearest the Tolchaco party up the ladder the chief of the Antelope priests appears. He holds the rattle box in his hand and is followed by the eleven priests, the last one a lad twelve years old. The line twists through the fringe of visitors, as oblivious of any onlookers as if they were going through this ceremony five hundred years ago when not a white face was dreamed of and when the Hopi was doing exactly what old Thisdoa and his grandson are doing to-day.

Then from out the other kiva the stately snake priests emerge, a group of twelve old men each bearing the rattle which contains the grains of corn. The incessant pattering of the rattles is the only sound heard in the plaza until the soft moccasined feet reach the board over the hole in front of the kisi. The thump, thump, thump of the feet pound over the board to call the attention of the underworld gods to the needs of their children up here. The sandy plaza is traversed and the two lines of priests circle about, finally stopping in front of the kisi, facing one another; then rises the "wo, wo, wo, wo," the guttural chant. The Hopis have been for many years a peaceful people, but this monotonous chant, rising occasionally into a swelling crescendo howl sends delightful cold shivers down the backs of the visitors, and even Elijah Clifford says he wouldn't want to meet that howl unexpectedly around the corner. Then the priests file past the kisi one by one, stoop by the opening and receive from the old warrior priest sitting within, a snake. Each one raises his snake to his mouth and holds it there between his teeth as he walks about the plaza accompanied by his hugger or companion. Suddenly the snakes are released and thrown down upon the sand. They make swift and desperate efforts to escape but are caught up again with such rapidity of movement that the closest attention paid by the tourists can not discover how it is done. Round and round the procession of twenty-four moves. Out from the houses near the snake kiva a group of girls and women suddenly run. They stop at the edge of the plaza near the Tolchaco party and scatter the sacred corn meal on the ground. Navajo horsemen dismount and pick up pinches of this sacred meal to put in their pouches for good luck. The twenty-four priests with their snakes twisting in their sinewy brown hands turn together and with a common movement all dart up to the place where the meal lies. They circle about the spot. Paul raises Helen up a little higher so that she can throw a horrified gaze into that astonishing scene. For a moment the only thing she and the rest can see is a squirming, hissing heap of snakes, apparently tangled together in an angry mass. And then the twenty-four priests shoulder one another as they stoop and with both hands grab up as many snakes as they can hold in their fingers, and suddenly separating, turn and face towards the edge of the rock, running with all their might, thrusting the snakes into the faces of any unlucky tourist or visitor who may be in the way.

There is a rush for the edge of the rock. Those who line up there see the lean figures of the priests leaping down the wild trail. Their forms can hardly be distinguished as they reach the desert and are dimly seen to be kneeling in prayer over the snakes as they let them go, down to the great plumed snake to beseech him to send rain, rain, rain, on the corn and melons of his children up here.

The rest of the ceremony is purification. The priests come panting and sweating up the rock. On the edge of the snake priests' kiva the women bring out huge jars of mysterious brown liquid. The panting figures kneel there in the now desert twilight and drink great draughts of this liquor. Kneeling about over the rock they disgorge from their mouths what they have been drinking. The merciful darkness is closing in swiftly over this disgusting scene, participated in, however, in all reverence by the priests and gazed upon in astonishing seriousness by the spectators, for is it not all a part of the painful crucifying of the flesh that these poor creatures have been subjecting themselves to for centuries in their blind but constant desire to find God, the God of the rain, the rain, the rain.

Gradually the priests disappear down into the kiva where a feast has been prepared for them by the women. The great festival, which will not occur again at Oraibi for two years, is over.

Paul sees Masters standing by him. In the dim light he realises with a start as he looks up, that the tears are rolling down over Masters's face.

"Oh, the people! How long will they seek after God in these ways! Oh, for the power to open their eyes to see him as He is!"

Through the growing darkness groups of tourists and visitors pass, choking the narrow paths between the houses, crowding into the trail down to the wagons at the foot of the rock. Among the confusion of chattering voices and exclamations one shrill voice of a girl penetrates through to the hearing of Masters and Paul.

"Wasn't it the greatest thing you ever saw? and oh, how picturesque! Those people, those girls on the houses! What a pity it would be to spoil it by trying to civilise these nature children!"

Masters looked at Paul grimly.

"Yes, it would be a great pity, wouldn't it? I wish that girl could stay here one winter and enjoy the picturesqueness of a Hopi Indian girl's life. I wonder if she has any little thought of the real life of these 'nature children'? Of its misery, its impurity, its dreadful sin and superstition and darkness; its infant mortality; its pain and disease due to the absence of any sanitary or medical skill. But most of all its ignorance of Jesus Christ and his love. 'Picturesque!' I grant you it is. But Christianity would not destroy anything worth keeping. For centuries these 'nature children' have walked in darkness. Are they not entitled, like that white girl, to the light of life? And did you see Talavenka when her father reached into the kisi for the snake?"

"No," said Paul, "I must confess my eyes were on the priests, not the spectators."

"Talavenka was crying all through the ceremony. Her father can not understand her new life. The girl stands alone in the midst of this superstition. What will become of her? The estrangement in the family is one of the most painful things I ever knew. Her mother Schewingoiashchi is the only one who seems kind to her. At times I think Schewingoiashchi is not far from the Kingdom herself. She does not object to Talavenka's baptism. We have talked of that. It will be a part of our service to-night. I must go and get ready."

Paul and Esther and the rest of the party went to Talavenka's house for the evening meal. Masters, who was of the old school of preachers, they learned afterwards had spent the hour before the service out on the edge of the rock a little past the mission chapel, praying in the darkness for the people of Oraibi.

Helen was very eager to go to see Talavenka baptised. During the afternoon she had noticed the girl's grief and had been deeply touched by it. They were of the same age, she had learned from Mrs. Masters. The few words she spoke in English during the midday meal had revealed a quiet dignity and a genuine Christian faith. Already Helen's romantic temperament was constructing a plan to have Talavenka leave Oraibi and finish her education in Milton academy.

"We can carry you over to the chapel all right," her father said. "Where are those young men? I haven't seen Van Shaw or his friends all the afternoon."

"They were there, I saw them," said Walter.

"I saw them on the other side of the plaza," said Bauer who had not lost sight of Van Shaw during the afternoon and had wondered more than once why he was avoiding Helen. He had had his talk with Mrs. Douglas and had been tormented all through that ancient prayer for rain with questions as to his wisdom in telling some things to Helen's mother. But he was not given to doubt concerning his motives and in this particular instance he had no hesitation over his own absolutely clean and disinterested motive. He wanted Helen to escape the horror of a union with a degenerate mind and heart as he knew they existed in Van Shaw's character and his own feeling for her did not occupy a prominent place in his motive. Of that much he was sure and it helped him somewhat to get through one of the most trying experiences of his life.

Bauer went on to say to Mr. Douglas that he had seen Van Shaw and his two friends go down the trail to their wagons and had not seen them come back up the rock. So Paul and Walter, Clifford and Felix took Helen over to the mission chapel towards which various groups could be seen moving through the unlighted spaces of Oraibi's crooked and narrow windings.

The chapel had been built by a small missionary society ambitious to signalise its existence by doing something desperately hard in a corner of the world where no missionary work had ever been done. The missionary in charge had laboured several years with that marvelous patience and persistence which nothing but the history of missions in this old world has ever recorded. And as a result of his work Talavenka had come into the light. She had spent two winters at the mission in Tolchaco and Masters had shaped and enlarged the faith that first had begun to glow on the grey rock of Oraibi. And the missionary had been planning to have Masters hold this special service and baptise Talavenka from the time he heard of his coming up to the snake dance.

Masters found a place on one end of the little platform for Helen's cot where she lay propped up in comfortable fashion. The room was very small and it filled up rapidly. When it would hold no more it is doubtful if any man with a message ever faced a more mixed or astonishing audience.

There were native Hopis, old men and women who did not understand a word of English. Navajo visitors, men who never appeared at Oraibi except once in two years. Paul recognised one man whom Masters had pointed out one day at Tolchaco as a notorious gambler and horse trader, known all over the painted desert as "Iadaka" the gambler; there were traders from the different government posts; a few teachers from the government schools; a bunch of cowboys from Flagstaff; half a dozen Apaches who had come up to Oraibi from an encampment near the Bottomless Pits; a dozen tourists from a half dozen different cities in the east attracted from tourist curiosity; three interpreters, one of whom happened to be in government employ and had been caught at Oraibi and detained there by an accident to his team on the way to Shungapavi. Masters knew him and asked him to come in and help at the service.

Besides this miscellaneous and polyglot audience inside the room, Helen soon became aware of nearly as many more spectators and listeners outside the building crowded about the open windows. The night was warm and still. The chapel had three windows on each side, and two at the rear behind the platform, and at each opening dark faces of various nationalities grouped and peered in with stoical or wondering interest. After the service had begun Helen suddenly became aware of the presence of Van Shaw and his two friends. They had evidently finished their supper and camp work and come back up the rock to be present at the chapel service but had been too late to get inside. Helen felt Van Shaw's gaze directed constantly at herself. He had secured a position close up to the second window from the platform. Helen again had that curious blending of anger and exultation, of shame and gratified vanity as if there were forces at work in her at war with one another tempting and antagonistic, attractive and repellant. But after one look had been exchanged between her and Van Shaw she changed her position on the cot so that she was partly hidden from him by a lamp which stood on one corner of the little parlour organ of the platform.

Do you know of any greater heroes than the heroes of the cross? These are the undaunted, unterrified, passion-filled souls of the earth. Masters personified the very spirit of aggressive, human, loving Christianity. That strange room full of humanity would have appalled anyone but a real soul-hungry man. What could anyone do with it? Century old vices and superstitions, brutal contempt for anything but coarse pleasures, stolid indifference to God, measureless egotism and age-long selfishness looked at him from the faces in the room and at the windows, from "Iadaka" and the wrinkled Hopis, from the sentimental tourist girl and Van Shaw and his two friends, from the dull visaged Apaches and the smirking traders, one of whom, to Master's own knowledge, had for years been cheating the rug weavers all the way from Black Bear Canyon to the Spanish Peaks.

And yet for some reason or a number of reasons, these humans were all here in front of him and as he looked at them, Masters had soul hunger for them. He loved the multitude. And it never entered his simple thought that anything else was possible but that in the long run they would all have to go down before the conquering Carpenter's Son. Yes, even old "Iadaka." He would some day see the light and he would walk and run all the way from Crested Buttes to the Bottomless Pit and throw his da'aka in there and kneel at Jesus feet and call him Lord. Have not the peoples of the earth been doing that all through the ages? Is not the miracle of regeneration greatest of all miracles since Jesus lived? Is anything too hard for God?

So Masters's simple unswerving faith spoke that night. He told in the simplest possible way the story of the cross. The old, old story that is changing the history of the world every day. The old story that is not afraid of modern philosophy, nor antique prejudice nor even the scoffing and sneering of Athens and the jeers of Vanity Fair and the complacent self satisfaction of the modern pharisee.

Then he told Talavenka's story as he knew she would be willing to have it told. The Hopi girl had sat on the front seat close to the platform. She was dressed in white and Helen wondered with herself more than once if Talavenka was like other girls and really knew or understood how marvellous was her black hair and her perfect coloured skin. And then almost as if someone had asked her, Helen asked herself if Talavenka had ever known a lover and if the great romance of life could come to her now that she had cut herself off from her people, and the swift runner in the corn dance might no longer look for her to come out in the grey morning and with the other maidens snatch from his arms the cool dew washed corn leaves and from his glowing eye the message which is the same between youths and maidens the world over.

But Talavenka was conscious herself of no other thought here to-night in the mission chapel at Oraibi. Masters spoke to her of her faith and asked her a few questions. The girl's face shone with intelligent affection for her Redeemer and then the missionary rose and held the baptismal bowl. Talavenka kneeled between him and Masters, Elijah Clifford with the tear in his eye standing by Miss Gray as if naturally their common interest in Talavenka and knowledge of her history made their mutual nearness a natural thing. Masters touched Talavenka's forehead with the water and said in a voice that trembled for the first time that night, "Talavenka, I baptise thee because of thy faith in the Lord Jesus, into the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen."

All through the service Masters had spoken through one or the other of the interpreters. In turn the Hopis, the Navajos, and the Apaches had heard of Jesus and what he had said had been listened to in some instances with evident eagerness. But the baptism of Talavenka impressed all alike. Even the stolid imagination of the trader from Red Stone Tanks could understand a little of the significance of what was going on there that night when the first Hopi maiden was being baptised into a religion which her ancestors for centuries had known nothing about.

They sang "My Faith looks up to Thee," and after a prayer by Miss Gray, which was so tender it made Helen cry, the meeting was over.

The people went out slowly. Those who knew Talavenka came up to see her. Her mother had sat still as if graven there all through the evening. Suddenly she drew her shawl over her head and rose and went out. Talavenka trembled as she watched her. "My mother!" was all she said. It was a whole volume of longing for her redemption. Helen heard her and held out her hand to her as she stood there near the little platform. And the two girls, one born in Christian civilisation, nurtured in soft and comfortable ways, and the other who first drew breath in a dark and filthy corner of a stone hut on this treeless rock, drew near together and the Christian faith of each swiftly bridged over all the centuries of difference in matters of language, customs and ceremonies. For is it not beautifully true that when Jesus enters a life it becomes a part of all life everywhere, and there is no longer any Greek nor Jew, neither Barbarian, Scythian, bondman or freeman, but all are one.

At that instant Van Shaw and his friends came down the aisle of the little room. They had crowded in as soon as enough people had gone out. They came up now, greeting the other tourists, some of whom they had met for the first time that afternoon.

Van Shaw, however, seemed especially anxious to reach the spot where Mrs. Douglas was standing talking with one of the government teachers from Kean's Canyon. In passing one of the tourists who was in the middle of the aisle, Van Shaw came face to face with Bauer, and to Bauer's tremendous astonishment Van Shaw said at once in a threatening tone—which, however, he guarded so as not to be heard by anyone else:

"I understand you have been meddling in my affairs. I consider it a mighty sneaking thing for you to do and I want you to understand I won't———"

Bauer recovered his composure quickly as he interrupted Van Shaw.

"We can't very well discuss this matter in here."

"I want a word with Mrs. Douglas first," said Van Shaw.

But Bauer stepped in front of him and said:

"I think you had better have a word with me first."

Van Shaw looked at him uncertainly and then turned and walked out of the chapel. Bauer followed him immediately.

The only light out on the rock was starlight. Darkness covered the blurred outline of Oraibi's houses, with only an occasional point of light here and there, or the sudden glow from some kiva as the opening reflected the fire at the bottom.

Van Shaw walked slowly as if by appointment out to the edge of the rock. When he stopped, Bauer was close by him. In the mist far below a red glow marked the camp by the Oraibi Wash. The night was very still and they were almost near enough to the chapel to distinguish the sound of voices within.



CHAPTER XVI

"NOW that we are here," said Van Shaw, "I simply want to repeat what I said. You don't butt into my affairs. Keep out. Coleman overheard a part of what you told Mrs. Douglas to-day while you were near the cemetery rock. He was on the other side of it. What you said may be true, but I consider it a sneaking thing and I won't stand for it."

Bauer was still. In the first place he had never faced such a situation and in the darkness there he swiftly recurred to his talk with Mrs. Douglas. He had found her already prepared for a part of what he had to say. Esther, sensitively intelligent in anything relating to Helen's welfare, had not seen Van Shaw a moment before she felt a repulsion for him amounting to horror. What Bauer told her from his own knowledge of Van Shaw's immoral life in Burrton roused all her mother instincts to protect her child from a fate worse than death if she should marry a man who had already fallen. She shared in the fullest degree with Bauer's deep fear that Helen might, in her desire for the soft and beautiful things of wealth, risk her very life itself, not because she knew she was doing it, but partly through ignorance of the real character of the man who had the unblushing selfishness to ask a pure girl like Helen to accept him as a husband, knowing himself to be what he was.

And Bauer, measuring in his slow but not stupid fashion all the consequences of his action in warning Mrs. Douglas, knowing clearly the code of morals governing men like Van Shaw and the wicked and unchristian standard of even so-called Christian society in condemning what it called "telling on others," nevertheless went forward to do what seemed to him to be only necessary in the name of common honour and decency.

The fact that Van Shaw had found out what he had done did not disturb him greatly. The only thing that troubled him now was to hold himself sufficiently in hand. He had never hated anyone in his life except this rich man's son and he had been slow to entertain that feeling for him. But it had grown like a tropical plant within the last three days. And all the old Teutonic rage latent in him was at the boiling point whenever he thought of Van Shaw and Helen together. He said to himself there in the darkness that if there had been light enough to see Van Shaw's sneering face he would have struck it. He remembered hearing his own father say once that one of his ancestors at Lausbrachen had choked the life out of a family enemy, using only one hand around the man's throat. He was so afraid of himself now that he involuntarily stepped back away from Van Shaw and Van Shaw noted it and put the action down to cowardice or fear.

"Well, are you going to keep out of my affairs? Is it any business of yours whether I try to make friends with the Douglases? Or perhaps———" he suddenly changed his tone as if a new thought had broken in on his mind. "Look here, Bauer. Perhaps—well, maybe you don't understand———I am going to marry Miss Douglas!"

"What!" Bauer cried out. He stepped nearer Van Shaw and Van Shaw stepped back, nearer the edge of the rock.

"Well," Van Shaw laughed. "That is, as soon as she says yes, I am. My intentions are all right. But—" and his accustomed mood quickly reasserted itself, "I warn you to keep out. Leave my affairs alone. A fellow whose father and mother have done what yours have, isn't in the best position to throw stones at other people."

Felix Bauer long years afterwards confessed to the dearest friend he had, that in that moment he had the nearest approach to the thought of murder and hate he ever knew. But before he could reply to Van Shaw's brutality he saw him stagger and reel and throw up his arms on the edge of the rock. He heard him cry out, "For God's sake, Bauer!" and then he fell backward and disappeared over the cliff.

For a second Bauer stood in his place smitten with horror. He was totally ignorant of the character of the ground where Van Shaw had been standing and of what lay below. Evidently a shelving piece of the rotten sandstone had broken off. How much of the edge was dangerous it was impossible to tell there in the dark. He uttered one loud cry of "Help!" and then flung himself down full length and dragged himself up to the place where Van Shaw had disappeared.

Just as he reached the edge, he heard fragments of the rock go rattling down and a sound as of a heavy body falling somewhere. He peered over fearfully. He shouted again. He looked, straining down, and it seemed to him that about twenty feet below he could see a huddled-up body lying on a projecting ledge.

And then Felix Bauer did as brave or as foolhardy a thing as anyone ever did. It was partly to punish himself for the murderous feeling he had entertained a moment before that he now said, "Good God! I must save him now. Help me, God! Help me!"

He swung about on the edge of the ragged rock and let his feet down. He felt a projecting knob of something, and then for a sickening second he paused and shouted again and then he let go, hugging the face of the cliff. As he went down, he began to realise thankfully that the cliff was rough and irregular. His hands were running blood, but he did not know it. As he felt resting places for his feet, or anything for his hands to clutch, he sobbed, "God help me! God help me!"

He was down at last near enough to see that Van Shaw had fallen in a bent-over position on a shelf of rock, a little more than wide enough to hold his body. He called to him but received no answer. At last he was near enough to drop down on the ledge but as he was about to do so, Van Shaw, with a groan of pain, turned over, and began to roll towards the edge.

Bauer desperately let go of everything, fell in a lump and snatched at Van Shaw. He caught one arm and, panting, held onto it. The rest of Van Shaw's body was hanging over the side of the ledge, and even in that critical moment Bauer recalled his first view of Oraibi rock as the wagons had come up from the Oraibi Wash and the Tolchaco party had scanned through the field glass the inaccessible sides. But he was on the opposite side now and how far it was below the place where he now was he could not tell. Only he knew it must be a killing distance down there in the dark that seemed to be reaching up black, heavy hands pulling at Van Shaw's unconscious body, pulling at it harder and harder every second. He could feel himself slipping down across the smooth ledge which offered no place for his sliding feet. He was using his last strength, but every second it seemed impossible. His lungs were bursting. The red taste of hot blood was in his mouth; he had a confused thought that he could let go of Van Shaw's arm any time, but he did not let go. He was slipping, slipping down, pulled inch by inch by those strong black hands of the dark down there, but still he clung and sobbed "God, save us!"

And then Elijah Clifford's voice called to him.

"I'm coming, Bauer, I'm coming."

The voice gave Felix one more ounce of strength. He exerted it, was conscious that someone was down there with him farther off at the side of the ledge, then his hold loosened, everything turned black and he did not know any more.

When he came to himself he was lying on one of the seats of the little chapel. Anxious white, frightened faces were all about him. He was dimly aware of Mr. and Mrs. Douglas and Mr. and Mrs. Masters and Elijah Clifford and Miss Gray and Helen and a group of tourists, one of whom he heard Mr. Douglas call "doctor." He seemed to feel conscious of another body that was lying on a bench near him, the body of Van Shaw, and as it stirred and groaned, he had an undefined feeling of thankfulness that he was still alive and that no murder had been committed. And then the hot taste of blood came into his mouth and he knew his hemorrhage had come on again.

He was too weak to talk and felt irritated at the hubbub about him. But cots were soon provided and he and Van Shaw and Helen were carried down the trail to their tents, where a curious and interested group soon gathered. Van Shaw had broken his shoulder and one leg. The doctor was not certain about other and internal injuries. But Van Shaw was conscious and unless something unforeseen took place, he was in a fair way to recover.

Everyone was excited and sleep was out of the question. So when everything possible had been done for Bauer and Van Shaw, Elijah Clifford told what he knew of the accident and in his own way related his share in the evening's adventures.

"You see, I had just lighted our lantern and had stepped out of the chapel to light our folks down the trail when I heard Bauer's cry for help. I hadn't seen him go out and I didn't know what he was doing out there, but it's always been a rule of the Mission when anyone yells 'help,' to run in that direction. I fell over an old standard oil can and broke my lantern and my shins. And I guess while I was down, Bauer was just getting over the edge of the rock.

"Say! Talk about recklessness, I take it Herr Felix Bauer has us all beat to a-run-down-the-trail-and-back. You strangers from New York, how would you like to back off the top of the Flat Iron Building, hang onto the coping with your fingers for a second and then let go, trusting to strike a window ledge or something between the soles of your shoes and Madison Square? Well, that's just what this tuberculosis son of Germany did, and if it doesn't knock all the snake traditions of this old rock into piki bread crumbs then I have lost my way and forgotten where I started from."

"How about yourself?" asked one of the New York tourists. "Didn't you go down the same place?"

In the light of the camp fire it was not easy to see that Elijah Clifford actually blushed. But he did, and Miss Gray sat near enough to note it. If Elijah Clifford had not been so embarrassed by the New York man's question he might possibly, if he had been looking in Miss Gray's direction, have seen a new look on her face. A look of shy Admiration that belongs to the border land of another county called Affection, which is a near by state to another called Love. But Clifford hastened to say:

"Oh, I had a light to go down with. When I fell, I broke the glass, but lucky the light did not go out, so I could see where I was going. And when I got down, there was Bauer hanging on to Van Shaw's arm in the most affectionate manner, as if he didn't want to have him leave before his visit was over. I hadn't more than time to get my foot braced on the lantern or something, when Bauer turned his friend over to me and for a minute or two he was on my hands, but by that time the folks up on top had let down some ropes and we soon got everybody up all right."

"Elijah," said Mr. Masters reproachfully, "why don't you go into the details? You know that when Mr. Douglas and I climbed down on the ropes, you were almost over the edge with Van Shaw's body."

"Well, that's the most slippery piece of rock I ever felt," said Clifford, and again he failed to note a movement on the part of Miss Gray. When Masters had said that Clifford had almost gone over the edge of the ledge with Van Shaw's body, she had put out the hand nearest Clifford, as if to hold him back.

"Yes," said Clifford, "that ledge is smooth and no mistake. If any more folks are going to fall over onto it, I think the Commissioners in Oraibi ought to drive some nails into it, or else build a neat little concrete wall around it. There were times while I was down there thinking it over, that I would have given considerable for a good, high English garden wall on the other side of Van Shaw's body and me. A lantern is a poor thing to brace your feet on. It lacks staying powers."

"Gentlemen," said Masters, turning to the group around the fire, "we have had a most wonderful deliverance from a tragedy and it is due to the heroism of two of the bravest men that ever lived. Elijah, don't interrupt me. The only way we can express our thanks is to go to the Heavenly Father with them," and without a moment's pause as if it were the most natural thing in the world, as it was with him, Masters broke into a prayer of thanksgiving so tender and eloquent that Helen, whose cot had been placed in one of the tents with its front opening near the fire where she could hear everything, bent her head over on her arms and cried.

She had been under a great nervous tension all day. And this last scene, coming as a most astonishing climax to it all, affected her quick imagination. Another thing had added to all the rest, at the memory of which she blushed as she hid her face in her hands during the quiet that followed that prayer by Masters.

When the three cots, her own, Bauer's and Van Shaw's, had been brought down the trail, at one place in a turn of the passage, while the bearers had to set the cots down to make some changes in the way of carrying them, her cot had stood a moment by the side of Van Shaw's. And in that moment, in the pale darkness, softened by the light of two or three lanterns, she had felt her hand seized. She almost screamed. It was Van Shaw's hand that had reached out from his blanket and for a moment he had almost crushed her fingers. She was not certain even now that he had known what he was doing, or that it was more than a convulsive movement in his semi-conscious condition. But the memory of it burned her cheeks like fire, and long after the last embers of the camp fire had died into grey ashes, she lay there in the tent wide awake and sleepless.

After awhile she grew aware that her mother was sitting close by her. Esther had determined, after what she had heard from Bauer, to have a talk with Helen at the first opportunity. The accident to Van Shaw had changed her purpose somewhat, but she said to herself it had not changed the facts in the case of Van Shaw's character, and the matter was still in the same condition as before the accident happened. With that in mind, mother and daughter began to talk together almost in a whisper, mindful of the thin tent walls and the nearness of the other members of the party. Their precaution was, however, almost needless, for everyone in both camps was sound asleep, and Van Shaw's own wagon and tent were at the farthest bounds of the camp, removed from the rest so he would not be disturbed.

"I can't sleep, mother, it has been such an exciting day. Was there ever such a day; in my life? And I think this last thing has shaken me. I never knew before what it meant to have nerves. But I can't shut out the picture of that snake dance and that terrible cliff and———"

She hesitated and then feeling her mother's hand enfolding hers, she said, with the frankness that had always been true of her confidences with her mother.

"There is another thing that has made the day different from any other day for me. I ought to tell you, mother."

"Don't tell anything that belongs to you as your own."

"No. But this belongs to you. I cannot rest without telling."

Helen was glad the darkness hid her face. She told her mother plainly what Van Shaw had said to her up there on the rock during the brief time they had been alone.

When Helen had apparently told all, Esther was silent. Helen began to feel frightened.

"Well, mother, you don't blame me, do you? Did I, have I—at any time given him any—any—encouragement to think———"

"No, no, dear, I am sure you have not been unmaidenly. But you do not know all—as I do, as others do, of this young man. I think you ought to know before you let your feeling, whatever it is, go farther."

And in a direct, plain way, as she had always talked with her children, Esther told Helen what Bauer had told her.

When she finished, the girl was silent so long, that her mother began to fear again, that deadening fear she had experienced of late whenever she had come to realise the girl's infatuation for the luxurious life. But Esther was not prepared for the question Helen asked when she broke her long silence.

"How did you come to know all this, mother? How do you know it is true?"

It was Esther's turn to be silent. If she told Helen that her source of information was Bauer, the girl might reasonably put it down as due to the jealousy of a rival, and so question its reliability. As a matter of fact, at that very moment, Van Shaw's parting words were in Helen's memory, "Don't believe all the stories you may hear about me."

"Mr. Bauer told me," said Esther slowly. "He knew the facts. They are known to others at Burrton. His only motive was to save you the———"

"He might spare himself the trouble," said Helen, sharply. "I can't help thinking he is interfering in my affairs and especially in Mr. Van Shaw's."

"He certainly interfered in his affairs when he saved his life to-night," said Esther quietly, and the words smote Helen almost like a blow. For she realised for the first time that night that her sympathy and imagination had been exercised almost wholly for Van Shaw, broken and bruised in that awful fall over the cliff. "Saved his life!" Bauer had done that! After telling her mother the story she had just heard! It was a most wonderful thing to do, as Elijah Clifford had said in his narrative out there a little while ago. And yet, and yet, she heard herself saying to her mother the next moment:

"It seems strange that Mr. Bauer should tell you this. It doesn't seem possible. I can't believe it!"

At that, Esther could not suppress a heart cry so full of agony that Helen was terrified.

"Mother! mother!" was all she could say. But Esther quickly calmed herself.

"Helen, if this young man should be unworthy of you, could you give yourself to him simply because he had money to offer?"

"No, no, mother, I am not wicked like that. You must not think so. I could not help questioning Mr. Bauer's statements. He is not altogether———" she could not say the word "disinterested," and her mother said it for her.

"But he knows how hopeless his case is. He is not expecting to gain any favour by telling me what he knows. Can you not see it is simply to save you from making the most awful mistake a girl can make in all her life when she unknowingly marries such a man? Bauer never expects to be a successful suitor. I do not believe you have any true measure of his feeling for you. But he is willing to risk anything to spare you misery. Cannot you see that? What other motive could he have? He is not a rival. The poor fellow told me frankly that he had given up all hope for himself. It is pure friendship, and it is so rare and so beautiful a thing that you cannot afford to trample it down or disbelieve the story he told me. Helen, if you should let your admiration for money and its power take such a step as to encourage a man like Van Shaw, it would break your mother's heart. But worse than that, it would break your own. Oh, you cannot, you will not do such a thing."

What could Helen say to that? And what less could Esther say to her? Let the careless mothers in America answer—the mothers who never talk frankly with their daughters about these things, and the careless daughters who never take their mothers into their confidence. How many unhappy marriages would never occur if mothers did their duty and daughters listened to and heeded the best friend they have on earth.

When Mrs. Douglas had finally fallen asleep, Helen still remained broad awake. Things had been said in the heart talk that made it impossible for her to compose herself to sleep. She could no longer doubt the truthfulness of Bauer or his clear motive, and strange tumult arose in her thought over the statement her mother had made about his abandonment of any thought of her as her suitor. The fact that he had expressed such a sentiment to her mother made Helen a little angry. Why should he give up all hope so easily—why—what was she thinking? She said to herself she did not want men to be cowards, but surely Felix Bauer was not a coward. A man who would go over a cliff like that did not deserve to have a timid girl like her call him a coward. Only———

And in the midst of all her other feelings she could not altogether shut out the sight of Van Shaw, broken and bruised as he had lain in agony there on the seat in the little chapel and she could not, even after all her mother had said, quite dismiss him from her thought. Her cheek glowed, as she raised the question in her imagination, of money and its fascinating power. Were all young men of wealth like Van Shaw? Would it never be possible for her to marry wealth and virtue together? And again there was that strange commingling of shame and exultation as she realised what a power she possessed to attract even such an one as Van Shaw, and try as hard as she would she did not drive out the scene of his declaration that morning. At any rate, it was genuine. Let him be what he had been, might she not awaken all the latent good in his nature and save him—her mother's ideas were very strict and serious. They were perhaps puritanical. But after all———

So she restlessly went back and forth in her argument and only fell asleep towards morning, her heart and mind wearied with the whole thing. Before she fell asleep she resolved to have a talk with Miss Gray and make her tell what she knew. She said to herself she would at least not dismiss Van Shaw entirely until she knew even more than her mother had been able to tell her about him.

But before the opportunity came for Miss Gray's confidence, several unexpected events occurred that made Helen wonder if she were in a land of enchantment. After what had already become a part of her history in this strange land, she might be pardoned, if, with her highly romantic temperament, she felt excited to an unusual degree.

In the first place, Mr. Masters had word, that next morning after the snake dance, that he was needed imperatively at Tolchaco on account of the illness of Ansa, old Begwoettins' grandchild. This was Miss Gray's favourite, and she was eager to return to the mission with Mr. and Mrs. Masters as soon as possible. Accordingly the fastest team and the lightest outfit were pressed into service and a short time after breakfast Mr. and Mrs. Masters and Miss Gray were ready to take the road by the Oraibi Wash, hoping to make Tolchaco by the next afternoon. Elijah Clifford wanted to go but it seemed necessary for him to remain with Mr. and Mrs. Douglas and help pack up for the return trip. Besides, two of the chuck wagon teams had broken their hobbles in the night and wandered off into the "indefinite nowhere," as Clifford said, and until they were found and brought back, it was impossible for the rest of the party to hitch in and leave Oraibi.

As if Providence had come to the special help of Walter, just before Masters had finished his preparations to leave, the Navajo runner who had brought word of Ansa's illness went silently to Walter and handed him a letter that had reached Tolchaco post office the day the runner started. It had a special delivery stamp on it to indicate the desire of the sender for haste, and after reading, Walter rushed over to his father who was helping Masters hitch up the traces.

"Listen to this, father!" he said in great excitement, while Mrs. Masters and Miss Gray were getting into the wagon and saying good-bye to Mrs. Douglas and Helen. "Anderson writes that Blake, the assistant foreman, is sick, and if I can come on and help him work over the installation of those new Reimark dynamos before term opens, he can promise me a good place as second assistant in the coil room this winter. I know more about the Reimark than Anderson himself and it will be a fine chance for me. He says I can have full pay for summer term work. I shall have to start back to Burrton by the first, anyway, and if Mr. Masters can take me along now, I can get over to Canyon Diablo or Winslow in time to make the California express and get into Burrton next week."

Masters gave a quick consent.

"We can take four as well as three. Come on."

Walter rushed his few camp things into his suit case, stowed it under the seat, kissed his mother and Helen, shook hands with Bauer, who was able to sit up on his cot in the near by tent, and climbed into the wagon by the side of Mr. Masters.

Elijah Clifford was not present when all this occurred, and when he came into camp two hours later trailing the fugitive horses after him, Masters's wagon was a black speck down by the Oraibi Wash.

Bauer told him of Walter's unexpected return to Tolchaco with Mr. Masters and Miss Gray.

"Yes, I told you," said Clifford. And for a moment Bauer thought he could detect a note of pensive regret in his words. "I told you Walter was lost. It's wonderful what providences there are for some people. That professor in that school couldn't have figured on getting that letter here at a more real serviceable opportunity for Walter, if he had been a real first class magician. And did you say there was a special delivery stamp on the letter? That beats everything worse than nothing. That's the first time, I reckon, in five hundred years that a special delivery stamp was ever used on a Tolchaco letter. And just think of the way things cogged into the right openings to get that letter there by special messenger. Well, well, I wouldn't mind being in Walter's place myself if I didn't feel so necessary here. But Mr. Douglas can't drive these mustangs back to Tolchaco."

He winked at Bauer good naturedly and hastened to inquire into his condition.

"I'm black and blue," said Bauer, "but otherwise, sehr gut. This is a miraculous climate. My hemorrhage is slight, and I don't believe it will recur. I have no symptoms. I don't want you to delay the return on my account." Then he added after a pause, "How is Van Shaw?"

"That fellow," said Elijah, "has missed breaking his neck by a miracle. His collar bone was fractured clear up to the last bone in his spinal column. Both of his legs were broken below the knee. He must have struck right on his toes when he fell, and doubled up on himself. He can't move out of here for some while. But I understand his mother has sent a wire from Winslow for Mr. Van Shaw to come on from Pittsburgh. She is pretty well upset by the whole business. She tried to thank me for saving her son's life and I think she was too hysterical and excited to understand me when I told her you were the party. She hinted that her husband would probably deed a railroad or two to me for saving her precious son's life. If they send the railroad out here I'll turn it over to you. I don't want it."

"But you did save him," said Bauer with some feeling.

"Well, no, I reckon I just preserved him. You had him saved, and I just took what you handed over and passed it up. But, what were you doing out there on the edge of that rock last night, anyhow? I forgot to ask when I was down there on the ledge and never thought of it again until just now."

Bauer was spared the embarrassment of trying to satisfy Clifford's good natured curiosity by the arrival into the tent of Mrs. Douglas, accompanied by the tourist doctor who had offered his services to both Bauer and Van Shaw and had fortunately had enough of his repair kit with him to do all that could be done outside of a well appointed hospital.

He pronounced Bauer to be in good condition and anticipated no recurrence of the flow for him if he were careful. Van Shaw was in a more serious case. He was suffering from a nervous shock and would have to stay where he was for some time. A room had been hired in a small stone house belonging to the government farmer, and Van Shaw was as comfortable as he could be under the circumstances. But he was delirious a part of the time and the doctor evidently believed his condition to be serious, if not critical.

Helen received the news of all this from her mother when she came back from Bauer's tent. She was much shocked at the account Mrs. Douglas gave. And again, as during the night, she found herself dwelling more over Van Shaw's suffering than Bauer's heroism.

The doctor advised two days' rest for Bauer before starting back to Tolchaco, so Clifford delayed the preparations for their start and during that time Talavenka came to see Helen, and Helen, with her accustomed enthusiasm, suggested to her in Esther's presence, a plan for going east and completing her education.

Talavenka listened with perfect equanimity to Helen's glowing account of the opportunities for education in the girls' school at Milton. Then she said with more than a quiet manner,—it was a poise of all the faculties, that a white person seldom possesses:

"You are kind, but I ought to stay here with my mother for awhile. She needs me."

"But would she not be willing to have you go away for a little while just to gain more power for your people? Mother, would you be willing to have Talavenka stay with us this winter?"

"I have already talked with your father and Mr. and Mrs. Masters about Talavenka and we are ready to take her into our home and treat her like one of our own circle," said Esther, who was chairman of the missionary committee in her church and a great enthusiast in all forms of missionary work.

Talavenka turned her black eyes to Mrs. Douglas. Her face shone. The light of her Christian faith illuminated her countenance like a gleam of sunshine. It was so marked that both Mrs. Douglas and Helen were startled by it.

"I do not know how to thank you. But my mother needs me this winter. I must stay with her."

She said it so gently, with such a complete sense of joyousness and an absence of all thought of renunciation, that Helen was profoundly moved. There was no possibility of changing her mind or insisting. There was something about Talavenka's simple statement that was distinctly final.

When the girl rose to go, Helen noticed the reddish brown water jar that Talavenka had dropped by the tent opening when she had entered.

"Yes," she said, as she put the jar on her back after passing the cord through the ears of it, "I am going down to the spring. How glad I am to be so well. Jesus helps me to bear all things."

She went out and half an hour later, Helen, lying on her cot outside the tent, saw her again coming up the trail with the swinging trot peculiar to the Hopi women, the full jar on her back, and she was singing, not the old song that her mother still sung, but a Christian hymn, "A little talk with Jesus makes it right, all right."

Helen watched her until she vanished behind the first cluster of grey houses. Talavenka had gone back to her people for awhile. But her torch was aflame, the torch of that faith that is destined in time to kindle the grey rock of Oraibi into a beacon of illumination that shall give healing and salvation to all those darkened minds and make the desert to blossom like the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valley.

The second day Elijah Clifford and Paul began to pack up, ready to break camp the following morning and start back to Oraibi. Van Shaw's condition was not much changed except that he was more rational. This was a hopeful symptom and the doctor made the most of it, encouraging Mrs. Van Shaw all he could.

Mr. Van Shaw was expected the next day, coming from Winslow. Van Shaw's friends, after learning that there was nothing special for them to do, had already made their plans to leave when the Tolchaco party went, going in company with Clifford.

Helen was nervous and unhappy. She had begun to brood over matters. Her mother had not said any more after that night's talk, but she could easily see that Helen was still going over the same ground, and that the chapter had not yet been closed for her. The thought gave Esther much uneasiness and yet she thought it unwise to open the subject again and so maintained a discreet silence, trusting to absence from the scene and the return to Milton to do what only time could effect in the girl's mind.

It lacked an hour or two of the time for departure the next morning when Mrs. Van Shaw came over to the camp with marks of trouble in her looks as she came into the tent where Mrs. Douglas and Helen were sitting. Mrs. Douglas was an energetic camper and had completed her packing early and was ready for the wagons as soon as the horses had been hitched in.

Mrs. Van Shaw was a showy woman who had done her best to spoil her son ever since his birth, by giving him everything he wanted, simply because he asked for it.

On this occasion she came at once to the point of her errand.

"Mrs. Douglas, my boy wants to see Miss Douglas before you go. He says he wants to say something to her in our presence. He has been begging me to come and see you all the morning. Can you come over now before you leave?"

Helen sat up a little higher on her cot, and her cheeks flamed. Mrs. Douglas looked at her, hesitated, and then answered Mrs. Van Shaw.



CHAPTER XVII

"WHAT does your son want to say to my daughter?" asked Esther. The thought of a dramatic interview between them was exceedingly distasteful to her.

"I don't know," said Mrs. Van Shaw guardedly. "He has been begging me to come and see you. Oh, he is very ill!" and at that the mother in her, mistaken and distorted though it were, in her training of the boy, broke down and she began to sob.

Esther was moved at the sight, and after a moment she said gently, "We are all so sorry for you, Mrs. Van Shaw. The shock of it all must have been terrible for you."

"I am just about prostrated by it. Mr. Van Shaw is expected to-day. He was in New York when the news reached him. But it surely is not asking anything improper to ask Miss Douglas to see my boy before you leave. We shall be obliged to remain here in this dreadful place until the doctor says Ross can be moved."

"Will you see him?" asked Esther, turning to Helen, and speaking quietly.

"Yes, I am willing to go," replied Helen in a very low voice. She dreaded and at the same time courted the interview. It had just the tinge of dramatic setting in it that appealed to her highly romantic imagination. She did not know what he wanted to say to her and she was not in the least prepared for the interview. But it seemed to her that it would be a piece of foolish affectation to refuse his request and especially since she would in all probability not have any occasion to meet him again.

Esther went out of the tent and in a few words told Paul of Mrs. Van Shaw's visit and its object. Helen would have to be carried over to the government farmer's house. Clifford called up two of the Indians and with their help, he and Paul carried Helen over. Bauer, who was hardly yet fit to sit up, but had already climbed into his place in one of the chuck wagons, saw the whole thing from where he sat, and again his mind went into a whirl with jealousy and anger. If Helen's mother had told her of Van Shaw's character, how could the girl, in spite of all that, go and see him now? It seemed to him like an indication of something coarse and low in Helen's nature, something which contradicted his pure thought of her. He could not understand it, and being ignorant of the fact that Helen was going in response to Mrs. Van Shaw's request, he brooded miserably over the whole affair and sat there gazing gloomily at the little stone house into which the group with Helen had gone.

Paul and Clifford and the Indians soon came out and went on completing their preparations for the departure.

Meanwhile, in the little room where Ross Van Shaw lay, tortured in mind and body, a remarkable scene was being enacted.

There was just room close by the door for the cot on which Helen was sitting, and the moment she was placed there, she was aware of Van Shaw's face staring at her. The sight of it shocked her almost to the verge of hysterics. She instantly controlled herself as she quickly noted the fact that both her mother and Mrs. Van Shaw were watching her.

"I wanted to see you before you went away," Van Shaw was saying, and his voice sounded very weak and a long ways off to Helen as she saw the tremble of his hands and the uncertain glance he cast at her, so sharply different from his previous bold and positive attitude towards her.

"We are so sorry for you," said Helen. "It was a miracle you were not killed."

"Yes. Thanks to Mr. Clifford, mother tells me. I want to thank him before he goes. Mother, won't you ask him to come in?"

"Yes, Ross. But do you think you can bear all this excitement? I am afraid it will be too much for you." The government farmer's wife, who was acting as nurse, added a word of objection.

"No, it won't," he said irritably. "I want to see him. Didn't you tell me he saved my life? I ought at least to thank him for it."

"I'll tell him, yes I will!" Mrs. Van Shaw spoke in the hurried, anxious tone of one who feared a scene if she refused his request.

"Tell him now, then mother. Ask him to come in now."

"I will. I will." Mrs. Van Shaw rose and went out of the room, leaving Mrs. Douglas and Helen staring at Van Shaw and wondering how he had not heard the news of his rescue by Bauer.

Van Shaw turned his look again towards Helen. And she saw then, even in her agitation, that he was moved by the excitement of his fever. As a matter of fact, the doctor, when he came the next day, was in a towering rage with Mrs. Van Shaw over what he called her insane yielding to the request of a delirious patient.

"I wanted to see you, Miss Douglas, before you went and warn you about that German fellow Bauer. He's been telling you stories about me, and trying to butt into my affairs and I just won't stand for it. You ought to know that his father and mother are in disgrace over a great scandal———"

Esther could not bear any more. She stood up and started to speak, just as Mrs. Van Shaw came hurrying in with Elijah Clifford. Helen was looking at Van Shaw with a different look from that which she had given him when she entered. It seemed as if a veil had been suddenly torn away from the girl's face and she was seeing something clearly which she had seen only dimly heretofore.

Before Esther could say what was on her lips, Van Shaw had gone on. But it was evident to all of them now that he was becoming delirious.

"Bauer hasn't any business to butt into my affairs. He's a sneaking cur. I won't stand for it. I'll get even with him. I'll tell Miss Douglas about his family. She'll never look at him again after that. I'll cook his job."

Mrs. Van Shaw looked uncertainly from one face to another.

"Here's Mr. Clifford, Ross. You wanted to see him."

"Clifford! Clifford!" Van Shaw turned his burning eyes on Clifford, who stood at the end of the bed gravely looking at him, and for a moment the delirium cleared and he spoke quietly.

"Oh! I wanted to thank you for pulling me up that cliff. It was a mighty brave thing to do and I won't forget it."

Elijah Clifford was not a cultured man as the word is ordinarily used, but he was more than that. He "sensed" things. He knew what to do in awkward situations. He did not know what had been said before he came but he saw in one swift glance that matters were in a delicate and critical state. He also saw in a moment what Van Shaw's condition was. He was not in a mental attitude to be reasoned with. So Clifford walked quietly up to the bedside, put one of his strong, firm hands on Van Shaw's trembling fingers as he had clasped them together and said:

"If I had anything to do with helping to save your life, I am very thankful the good God used me. But your mother will tell you when you get well enough to hear it that you owe your life, not to me, but to a braver man, Felix Bauer. I can't help hoping—" Elijah said it with an indescribable accent of tenderness—"that when you get well again, you will make the most of your life to the glory of God!"

For a moment Van Shaw looked up at Clifford in a bewildered manner, but as if he partly understood. Then he turned his head towards Helen and his glance wandered uncertainly about the room. Then he burst into a delirious laugh.

"Bauer saved me! That sneaking cur! Why, he pushed me over the cliff! I'll get even with him! Butting into my affairs! I won't stand for it. His father and mother———"

But Helen could not bear any more. She had cowered down when Van Shaw spoke the first word. Now she whispered to her mother, "Take me out, mother, I cannot bear it."

Clifford simply said to Mrs. Van Shaw:

"We had better go, Mrs. Van Shaw. If you and the nurse need any help, call us."

He took hold of one end of the litter and Mrs. Douglas took the other and they carried Helen out. Before they were out of hearing, Van Shaw was cursing and swearing in a torrent of words that made Helen cover her ears as she lay back on the cot sobbing from the nervous strain she had been bearing.

Clifford and Paul and the Indians finished the work of breaking up camp and in half an hour the party was ready to leave Oraibi. Esther had asked Clifford to wait until she went over to enquire if she could do any more for Mrs. Van Shaw, when she met her coming out of the house.

"No, there is nothing you can do," she said, in answer to Mrs. Douglas's inquiry. "Ross was always that violent whenever he had a fever. Ever since he was little, he has been the same. It is dreadful what words he will use when he is out of his head. But I cannot let Mr. Clifford go until I know the truth about the German, Bauer. If he saved Ross, Mr. Van Shaw would not forgive me if—if we didn't do something for him. But I have been so confused during all this dreadful affair that I haven't really known how it all happened. I want to see Mr. Bauer, if you can wait a little."

Mrs. Van Shaw was agitated and tearful. Esther could easily see in her a naturally good natured, kind hearted woman, with a superficial education, who had ruined her children by unlimited indulgence of all their selfish habits, A woman who had been brought up to believe that the greatest of all things in the world is success in getting money and ingenuity in spending it. With all the rest she was a woman of some direct force of character which, in times of crisis as at the present moment, asserted itself with considerable positiveness.

She came up to the wagons and spoke to Clifford first.

"Mr. Clifford, before you go, I want to know the truth about the rescue of Ross from that fall. I know you told me about Mr. Bauer, but I wasn't clear about it. Mr. Van Shaw would never forgive me if I didn't get the thing straight. He is very particular. And of course, I naturally am deeply interested in knowing what occurred."

"There is Mr. Bauer, madam," said Clifford gravely. "You had better ask him about it."

Bauer was in the same wagon with Mr. and Mrs. Douglas and Helen. On the return trip, in the absence of Mr. Masters, Paul was driving the chuck wagon which had been reloaded so as to allow room for Helen's cot in the rear end of it.

Mrs. Van Shaw went over to the wagon and began to ask Bauer questions.

"Is it true that you went down after my son before Mr. Clifford came?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"In the dark?"

"There are no lights on the edge of the rock."

"Did you see him lying there below?"

"I saw something that looked like a body."

"How far below was it?"

"I don't know. I hadn't time to measure."

"Mr. Clifford said something to me about finding you clinging to Ross's arm. Why were you doing that if he was lying on the ledge?"

"He had turned over and was rolling off."

"Then you were holding his arm———"

"Until help came. Then Mr. Clifford pulled him back over the edge."

Mrs. Van Shaw paused. Then she said abruptly:

"My son says you pushed him over the cliff."

"How dreadful!" a voice broke in and there was Helen, Her cheeks on fire, sitting up confronting Mrs. Van Shaw.

"I know, Miss Douglas, he spoke in his delirium. But what were you doing out there together? Why should you and Ross be there?" she said, turning again to Bauer, who, when confronted with Van Shaw's charge, had turned pale and clenched his fingers deep into his palms.

"I cannot tell you why we were there. I did not push him over the cliff. The edge of it where he stood, crumbled and he went down."

"Why were you there with him? Can't you tell me that?"

"I would rather not."

Mrs. Van Shaw looked uncertainly from one to another. There was a mystery here. She was too much of a woman of the world not to know, and indeed, her son had plainly told her that he was infatuated with Miss Douglas, but what had this obscure German invalid to do with it? In the midst of all her questions, Helen broke in.

"Mrs. Van Shaw, do you realise that Mr. Bauer risked his life to save your son? What he said about being pushed over the cliff is a fearful thing to say even in delirium. Surely you can't believe that, after knowing that Mr. Bauer went down the cliff to save him."

She spoke with a passionate eagerness that was an expression of one of the splendid traits of her personality,—a genuine love of justice. Poor Bauer hardly realised that she was defending him, but he said to himself even then that he had never seen her beauty flame out so magnificently. And then before Mrs. Van Shaw could reply to Helen, he said to the astonishment of all in the breathless group:

"I ought to confess to you, Mrs. Van Shaw, that just before your son fell over the cliff, I had a feeling of hatred for him so strong that I—I—think I had murder in my heart. I don't pretend to deny that I came the nearest that night to being a murderer in feeling that I ever came. But I was at least six feet away. I never put my hands on him. His fall was a pure accident. May I add that the moment he fell, my hatred seemed to leave me, and I had no thought except to try to save him."

Mrs. Van Shaw stared at Bauer in astonishment. She had never met anyone in her circle of acquaintances who possessed such transparent honesty. But she was a woman who, with all her faults, had some rugged sense of honour and was more than an ordinary judge of character. She came up to Bauer closer and put out her hand.

"Mr. Bauer," she said frankly, "I believe what you say. And I can't let you leave without expressing my great thanks for your brave act. Ross must have been talking in his delirium. But you know—I remember one German proverb in my schoolgirl exercises—'Jeder Mutter Kind ist schon?' 'Every mother thinks her own child beautiful.' And I couldn't understand how Ross could make such a statement. But why should you have such a hatred for my poor boy?"

The question was one Bauer could not very well answer, and he did not even speak a word. Mrs. Van Shaw looked at Mrs. Douglas and Helen. Helen's cheeks burned. Mrs. Van Shaw was a woman of the world and she thought she understood some of the reason for Bauer's silence and Helen's confusion. But she was also convinced that something more than a jealous rivalry between two young men must account for the depth of feeling on the German student's part.

She did not ask her question again but gravely said to Bauer as she turned to go, "Mr. Van Shaw will want to express his thanks to you. What will your address be?"

"I suppose I shall be at Tolchaco this fall and winter. I would rather not have you or Mr. Van Shaw feel under any obligation to me at all. Mr. Clifford certainly did much more than I did. If he had not gone down there, your son would not be living."

"We shall thank Mr. Clifford also. And we shall not forget either of you."

She went back into the little stone house and a few minutes later, Clifford and Paul had the horses headed down by the Oraibi Wash, bound for Tolchaco.

All through that day's drive Helen Douglas hardly said a word, even to her mother. She was going over the strange experiences which had become a part of her life since she had come into this desert land. The scenes at Oraibi would never become dim in her memory, and especially those which had occurred during the last two days.

Her probing of her feelings in the analysis she was somewhat fond of making of herself resulted in a complete reversion of her attitude towards Ross Van Shaw. She said to herself she dated that change of thought from his words and actions that morning, and especially on account of his brutal attempt to "get even," as he said, with Bauer. Even allowing a great deal for his action as due to his mental and physical condition, the whole thing, Helen now felt sure, was an indication of his general character. He had been caught for a little while off his guard, and in that time, Helen had seen him as he was. And the vision she had caught of his perverted heart and mind was not a pleasant vision. She even shuddered at herself as, with burning face, she recalled how near she had come, on such brief and slight acquaintance, to giving herself to such a life, lured in great part by the glamour of that golden mirage into which so many of earth's brave and beautiful souls have hastened, only to find its sparkling waters to be nothing but dust and its promise of luscious delights of the senses, nothing but the dead sea fruit of bitter disappointment.

It should be said in all honest judgment of Helen's experiences at this time, that the girl's final rejection of all thought of Van Shaw (who, before she had reached Milton, passed out of her history), was due to more than the revulsion she felt over his words in the little stone house at Oraibi. It was due as much to her mother's counsel, and in fact, to the entire atmosphere of a healthy, happy home life which she had always known, and in which Esther had trusted for the final outcome of Helen's choices. So that what seemed to her at that time to be a sudden act due to an accidental revelation of character, was, as a matter of fact, due to a life long training in a home which had established in the fibre of its whole system, underlying principles of right thinking and pure living.

When, a few days later, word came to Tolchaco that Ross Van Shaw had recovered sufficiently to be taken home and that he would probably suffer no permanent crippling from his fall, Helen found herself simply in a mild way glad to know the fact, but that was all, and Van Shaw faded out of her mind even more quickly than he had blossomed into it.

All through this first day's travel towards the mission, Felix Bauer was also going through some tumult of feeling over the events that had made history since the party had left the mission.

He was sore at heart over much that had taken place and could not reconstruct his former image of Helen as at heart a maidenly, dignified girl, worthy of the most exalted worship. He said to himself that even after she must have known from her mother what Van Shaw was, she had gone to see him, to say good-bye, to encourage him, to—his mind could find no excuse for her and do what he would, he felt himself growing more and more distressed over it.

Mrs. Douglas was a very wise woman and Bauer's trouble did not escape her notice. She understood the reason for it, but it was only at the close of the day, during the preparations for the night camp, that she found an opportunity to speak to Bauer alone.

"Felix," she said, using his first name as she had begun to do of late, to Bauer's quiet pleasure, "I know what is troubling you now. But Helen did not go over to see Van Shaw of her own wish. She went because his mother came over and brought a request from him to see Helen. No, I don't think you need to know what was said there in our presence. It ought to be enough for you to know that I am quite sure Helen has passed the place of her infatuation, if indeed she has gone so far as to yield to such a feeling. I could not let you imagine that Helen was really lacking in real maidenly conduct."

Bauer's face shone with delight. "Oh, thank you, Mrs. Douglas! I have been doing her injustice all day. You have no idea how relieved I feel. And I have been sitting in judgment on everybody. Oh, if I were a monk now, like one of my ancestors, I would lash myself bloody. What a fool I must be to think I have a right to judge others as I have. And I have let hatred and malice and revenge creep into my soul at the thought of Van Shaw. I don't see how God can forgive me."

"He has forgiven a good many worse men than you, Felix," said Mrs. Douglas, smiling at him. "Don't lose any sleep over that."

Felix Bauer slept like a child that night and as his habit was he wakened early and as he sat up and saw the figure of Elijah Clifford kneeling out on the sand, the same thought of God's benignant presence occurred to him which the same sight had roused in him before. Clifford rose and came in to make the usual preparations for breakfast.

"I have been praying for Ansa. By this time the folks must have got there if the river is not in flood. We haven't had any runner bring bad news. I don't know what I'd do if Ansa should be taken. It would just about break Miss Gray's heart too. She thinks everything of that child. She says she is going to train her to be a great teacher for her people."

Bauer expressed his sympathy and asked if there was a good doctor to come over to the mission from Flagstaff.

"Yes. Or it's possible Doctor West will be there from Raymond. He sometimes pays us a visit about this time of the year. My! Wouldn't it be providential if he should come along for Ansa. And he could dissect you at the same time and like as not find out that your hemorrhages don't come from your lungs, and that you haven't got consumption any more than I have. The doctors sometimes make mistakes in their diagnoses you know. Would you feel bad to learn that you didn't have tuberculosis after all?"

"I believe I would be able to bear the news if it was broken to me gently."

"But maybe Miss Helen wouldn't pity you so much, eh?"

"I don't want to be pitied."

Clifford looked up from his fire approvingly at Bauer.

"You're right, my son. Pity from a girl when you want something else from her is like apple pie minus the apple. It's pretty dry fodder. But say," Elijah abruptly changed the topic of talk, "What about Walter Douglas? He's a likely fellow, isn't he? Bound to make his mark, isn't he?"

Bauer stared a little, not knowing why Clifford was asking the question.

"Yes, Walter is going to surprise everyone with his talents one of these days."

"And he's a good fellow morally and all that I suppose?"

"He certainly is. I don't know a better. Anyone that has such a mother as Mrs. Douglas can't help being good."

Clifford was silent while he adjusted various utensils around the fire.

"Yes, Mrs. Douglas is an angel. Mr. Douglas will never have to buy an aeroplane for her. She's got her own wings. And some day they'll carry her right up to heaven." Then, after another pause:

"How old is Walter?"

"Twenty-four."

"How old should you take Miss Gray to be?"

Bauer was surprised at the question.

"I don't know. I am a poor hand at guessing."