The Rim of the Desert

eys with her father, when she had driven Pedro and Don José. But though she told the story with composure, even with a certain vivacity and charm, as she might have narrated it to

nd there drenched, with the comfortable quarters of the mining company in sight, cut off by an impassable washout. And it was wretched driving all those miles to our hotel in wet

hat seemed trivial in passing will loom up behind us like a cliff on the horizon. And it is so with people. The man who held the foreground throug

nd, to whom, when you were reminded and it suited your convenience, you were ready to do a service, stands out from the shadows clearly defined. It is under the test of those high lights behind that h

le's shoulder, the nearest object, in a tightening grip, while for a breathless moment she leaned forward, trying to penetrate the

very much, but it took me off guard. It sounds so desol

ribes it, but you never ha

n in apprehension to the night-ensh

ith just the wind piping down a ravine, or a cat

terrifying," and the sh

at did

gether and throw on more spruce bough

hite-faced woman," said Miss Armitage. "She baffles me. Was she yo

rdon setter there that reminded me of her. Her dog had the same points, though he had been better trained." He paused briefly, then said: "She was both. She was like that small, wh

," Miss Armitage ventured, breakin

neighborhood of Turnagain Arm until midsummer, when I moved camp up the river to the mouth of an unexplored tributary. It was the kind of stream to lure a prospector or a sportsman, clear, rapid, broken by riffles and sand-bars, while the grassy shores looked favorable for elk or caribou. To bridge the delay while the last pack-horses straggled in and the men were busy pitching tents and putting things into shape, I decided to go on a short hunting trip. I traveled light, with only a single blanket rolled compactly for my shoulder strap, in case the short night should overtake me, with a generous lunch that Sandy, the cook, had supplied, but at the end of t

ed boughs, I leaped from the bole to avoid the litter beyond. At the same instant I saw under me, wedged in the broken branches, the body of my bear. He was a huge grizzly, and must have made an easy and ugly target as he lumb

urned quickly and threw open the door. The next instant her hand fell to the neck of a fine Gordon setter and, tugging at his collar, she drew back and stood surveyin

I am so glad you have come.' And she s

Armitage breathlessly, "it

an. She was city bred and had been carefully reared-accustomed to have things done for her. I saw

tage. "Fate had brought her, left

thought I would not lay it to Fate at all. You see, she had come voluntarily, willingl

tter, who was alternately springing on me and excitedly wagging his tail. I like a good dog, and I soon had him familiarly snuffing my pockets; then he stretched him

nto the room. 'You made a fine shot, and that bear

tly because I haven't seen any one for so long, and partly because, for a moment, I thought you were my husband. I've been worried a

ess of her face, the appeal in her eyes not yet dry, and that so

I have lived so long in the eternal stillness sometimes that the first patter of a rain on the

husband had to leave me. The trail up the canyon is the merest thread. It would have b

ove the tree line, and this time he expected to prospect along the glacier at the source of the stream. Sometimes erosions laid veins open, and any hour 'he might stumble on riches

s almost a certainty he has found

He doesn't hunt any more.' She stopped, watching me, and locked her slim hands. Then, 'He is greatly changed,' she went on. 'The last time he came home, he h

ails him, he sinks in complete collapse. More than once I had come on such a wreck, straying demented, babbling, all but famished in the hills. And I was sorry for that little woman. I understood the pitch she must have reached to speak so freely to a passing stranger. But it was hard to find just the right thing to say, and while I stood choosing words, she hurrie

known about your husband. I am on my way up this canyon, and I shall look for him. And,

sail looming through fog. Then the shadows scattered, and the belated moon, lifting over the dunes beyond the Columbia, silvered th

, watching his face, waiting

d him?" she a

o take the setter, and I saw the advantage in having a good dog with me on such a search; any cleft, or thicket, or sprinkle of boulders, might easily conceal

, I promise you.' And she led the way, picking up the faint trail and setting a pace that I knew must soon tire her, w

wn slope; but it never wound or doubled if there was foothold ahead. It led up stairs of graywacke, along the brink of slaty cliffs that dropped sheer, hundreds of feet to the stream below. Still she kept on pluckily, and whenever I turned to help her, I found her there at my elbow, ready. Now and then in breadths of level, where it was possible to walk abreast, we talked a little, but

tin box in which Sandy had stored my lunch. She told me my cook made a good sandwich and knew how to fry a bird Southern fashion. Then she spoke of the Virginia town where she had lived before he

long as I have my husband, nothing else counts. I could live out my life, be happy here

hos of it all must have impressed the coldest listener. The

urn for her, she had sailed to Seward in search of him. She had tried to influence him to give up the placer, when she saw the change in him; at least to

s or luxuries in the world are worth the price.' She did not break down, as she had in the cabin, but some

ed a moment to frolic with the dog, her face brightened. Then she spoke of a little trick she had taught him,-to go and meet hi

ng that cave like a bridge and lifting back, rimmed in moraine, far and away to the great white dome. And it was all wrapped in a fine Alpine splendor, so that she stopped beside me in a sort of hushed wonder to look. But I could hear her breath, laboring hard and quick, and she rocked uncertainly on her feet. I laid my hand on her arm to steady her. It was time we turned back. For half an hour I had been gathering c

t me, a dead weight. I carried her a few yards to a bank of heather and laid her down, and while I was filling my folding cup at the stream, the dog bounded over the rocks and dropped the thing on her breast. It was a hat, a gray felt with a good brim, such as a prospector, or indeed any man who lives in the open, favors; but the setter's actions,-he alternately rushed towards the glacier and back to his mistress, with short yelps,-warned me to be careful, and I tucked

d trip, mixed a draught. It revived her, and in a moment she started up. 'Whe

th his short, excited barks, and making all the signs of a hunting dog impatient to lead to the quarry. She tried to get to her feet, but I put my hand on her shoul

' she began

et her look, but I answered with all the assurance I coul

then her glance moved back incredulously

f ptarmigan, probably. But while you are resting he

hickly strewn with broken rock, but at the upper end there was a clear space grown with heather. And it was

ar sky threw a soft illumination on the desert. The cry of the cougar had ceased. The electrical displa

ou mixed another draught from your emerge

spruce half-way down the gorge. If he had made such a trip and not gone on to the cabin, it clearly proved his mental condition. Still in the end there had been a glimmer of light, for he had torn a leaf from his notebook and written first his wife's name and then a line, out of which I was only able to pick the words 'give' and 'help' and 'States.' Evidently he had tried to put the paper into his poke, which had dropped, untied, from his hand with the pencil he had used. The sack was nearly full;

me to meet me and she waited at the crossing, supporting herself with her hands on a great boulder, shoulders forward, breath hushed, watching me with her soul in her eyes. At last I reached her. 'Madam,' I began, but the words caught in my throat. I turn

ew her arms against the rock and dropped her face. 'Come,' I said, 'we

e lifted her face with a smile that cut me worse than any tears. 'I'm not un

hurried to answer. 'Trust

ment she stopped at the first turn to look back, he streaked off once more for that pocket. 'Never mind,' I said, and helped her over a rough place, 'Jerry knows he is a good traveler. He will be home befo

is gaze, sifted the cloudy Pass. She seemed in that moment to see that other canyon, stretching down from the glacier, and those two

chiseled where they had been only lightly drawn, and when she caught me watching her and coaxed up her poor little smile, I could have picked her up in my arms and carried her the rest of the way. But we reached the tree-line before she came to her li

ing. I felt unnerved a little, for that matter. It was a dangerous place. I had been recklessly foolish to delay her there. But when I had

e cold off for another hour; that should see you home. After I have made a good fire, I am go

ut but sat like a marble woman, with her eyes fixed on it. Then, after a while, she bent and lifted it and began to shape it gently with her numb little fingers. She was beyond tears, and the white stil

erry did bring it across the ice-bridge. He found Louis and

end had come easily, probably the previous night, of heart failure. 'But I couldn't nerve myself to tell you up there,' I

ough the belt of spruce. I moved very slowly, choosing steps, for she paid no attention to her footing

age waited, listening. It was as though in t

r of those weeks; the long-drawn suspense. She should not have stayed in Alaska. She should h

ot always to the victor. And she blamed herself that she had not gone north with her husband at the start. You see she loved him, and love with

s stem. "Every woman owes it to herself to keep her self-respect," she said. "She owes i

ghtly frowning brows: "And it was just that reason, the debt to her race, that buoyed her all the way through. It controlled her there at the glacier and gave

nges everything," she said. "But of course you returned the next day with a

itary spruce, between the cabin and the creek, and I inscribed his name and the date on the trunk of the tree. But my time belonged t

ith the surprise in her voice. "But I see, I see!" and she settled

the lower valley. We were working toward each other, and I expected to meet him any day. In fact, I had mail for him at my camp that had come by way of Se

have the claim recorded and get supplies and mail when he heard the baying setter and, rounding the mouth of the pocket, saw the camp and the dead prospector. Afterwards, when he had talked with the woman waiting down the canyon, he asked to see her husband's poke and compared the gold

with a touch of frostiness: "And they traveled those miles

hole Round Table, Sir Galahad on that Alaska trail, to-day. And Weatherbee was doubly anxious to reach Seward. There was a letter from his wife in that packet of mail I gave him. She had written she was taking the opportunity to travel as far as Seward

stioned Miss Armitag

une to find a motherly woman, who knew something about nursing, to stay with Mrs. Barbour. It was Christmas when her fath

, frontier towns, are s

halted, then added hu

, "but, of course, in an

herb

e was dust enough to have carried her through even an Alaska winter; but an old Nevada miner, on the

David Weatherbee, too? He sold his sh

r.' She hadn't specified, but I guessed directly she had been accepting loans from her friends, and I saw it was that that had worried him. To raise the necessary money, he had been obliged to realize on the new placer. His partner had been waiting to go in to the claim with him, and Weatherbee's sudden offer to sell made the mining man suspicious. He refused to buy at any

z body above, stringers and veins of it reaching through the graywackes and slate, but to handle it Weatherbee must set up a stamp-mill; and only a line of pack-mules from the Andes, a

ween his brooding eyes. "And think what it meant to Weatherbee to have seen, as he had, day after day, hour aft

voice dropped into an unexpected note. "You believe he threw away that rich discovery for the few hundreds of dollars he sent his wife; but I know-she was

her. You couldn't estimate him by other men; he stood, like your white mountain, alone above the crowd. And he set a pedestal higher than himself and raised his wife there to worship and glorify. A word from her at any time would have turned the balance and brought him home; her

r in a tightening grip. Her lip trembled again, but the words failed. S

ht, you might be generous; you might try to imagine her side. Suppose she had not guessed his-need-of her; been able to read, as you did, between the lines. Sometimes a woman waits to be told. A proud woman does." She came back the few steps. "Be

few feet from the porch he stopped to add, less grimly: "I should have said good morning. You see how that pyram

that had also a hint of dread, the stillness of her small face, white in the u

ght help to bridge over the time. There's nothing can tide one through an unpleasant situation like hearing about some one who fared worse. And I had

ntrol. Then, "Any one must have been interested," she said, and drew away her hand. "You have the