Gabriel Conroy

ts gaunt white flank two figures had been slowly crawling since noon, until at suns

and made her exquisite little figure still more diminutive, but it could not entirely hide its graceful curves. Here in this rosy light the swooning fringes of her dark eyes were no longer hidden; the perfect oval of her face, even th

he had already asked many days before that day, "Do you love me, Philip?" And Philip,

nd later a squirrel's hoard. On the third day Philip had killed the proprietor and eaten him. The same evening Philip had espied a duck winging his way up the ca?on. Philip, strong in the belief that some inland lake was t

to the horizon's edge. There was no break-no glimpse of watercourse or lake. There was nothing to indicate whence the bird had come or the probable point it was e

them, and ploughed down the steep bank of the cliff, breaking off the projecting rocks and protuberances, and cutting a clean, though almost perpendicular, path down the mountain side. Even in falling Philip had presence of mind enough to forbear clutching at the crumbling ledge, and so precipitating the rock that might crush them. Before he lost his senses he remembered tightening his grip of Grace's arm, and drawing her face and head forward to his breast, and even in his unconsciousness it seemed that he instinctively guided her into the smooth passage or "shoot" made by the plunging rock below them; and even then he was half conscious of dash

" were the first word

t, at the same moment the colour faded from her cheek, and even the sun-kis

ound of hurrying water, and before him, scarce a hundred feet, a rushing river! He looked up; the red glow of sunset was streaming through the broken limbs and shattered branches of the snow-thatched

e! He knew now where the birds and beasts had betaken themselves-why the woods and ca?ons we

we are

s spoke more eloquently of joy at his rec

haps-but a clue to our way out of this wilderness. As we

," she sai

ed at her i

ling rocks and snow above, I had a glimpse of

bove the opening where the great

dragged me

miled f

am," she said, and then pro

r hardships, but it was gone. He glanced around him; it was lying on the snow, empty! For the first time in their weary pilgrimage Phi

ear," she said. "You looked so faint

stunned; and y

strove to rise. But she uttered a

y climbing the ledge she had spoken of

w miles away. It is still light,

ear Philip," said

d Philip, a lit

think-my le

ra

e had