Upon leaving timber-line they entered upon a wide and sterile slope high on the rocky breast of the great peak, whose splintered crest lorded the range. Snow-fields lay all about, and a few hundred feet higher up the canons were filled with ice. It was a savage and tempest-swept spot in which to pitch a tent, but there among the rocks shivered the minute canvas home of the shepherd, and close beside it, guarded by a lone dog, and lying like a thick-spread flock of rimy bowlders (almost unnoticeable in their silent immobility) huddled the sheep. "There's your house," shouted Ross to Wetherford. The older man, with white face of dismay, looked about him, unable to make reply. The walls of the frail teepee, flapping in the breeze, appeared hardly larger than a kerchief caught upon a bush, and the disheartened collie seemed nervously apprehensive of its being utterly swept away. The great peaks were now hid by the rain, and little could be seen but wet rocks, twisted junipers, and the trickling gray streams of icy water. The eastern landscape was naked, alpine, splendid yet appalling, and the voices of the sheep added to the dreary message of the scene. "Hello there!" shouted Ross, wondering at the absence of human life about the camp. "Hello the house!" Receiving no answer to his hail, he turned to Wetherford. "Looks like Joe has pulled out and left the collie to 'tend the flock. He's been kind o' seedy for some days." Dismounting, he approached the tent. The collie, who knew him, seemed to understand his errand, for he leaped upon him as if to kiss his cheek. Ross put him down gently. "You're almost too glad to see me, old fellow. I wonder how long you've been left here alone?" Thereupon he opened the tied flap, but started back with instant perception of something wrong, for there, on his pile of ragged quilts, lay the Basque herder, with flushed face and rolling eyes, crazed with fever and entirely helpless. "You'd better not come in here, Wetherford," Ross warned. "Joe is here, horribly sick, and I'm afraid it's something contagious. It may be smallpox." Wetherford recoiled a step. "Smallpox! What makes you think that?" "Well, these Basques have been having it over in their settlement, and, besides, it smells like it." He listened a moment. "I'm afraid Joe's in for it. He's crazy with it. But he's a human being, and we can't let him die here alone. You rustle some wood for the stove, and I'll see what I can do for him." Wetherford was old and wasted and thin-blooded, but he had never been a coward, and in his heart there still burned a small flame of his youthful, reckless, generous daring. Pushing Cavanagh one side, he said, with firm decision: "You keep out o' there. I'm the one to play nurse. This is my job." "Nonsense; I am younger and stronger than you."