* * * * * Mateo Golinda shouted to them presently and rode over the crest. He had come up at daybreak, as he had promised, and he had seen, understandingly, all that had happened with the latest fire, and he had grave words of praise for the Ranger. Then he rode swiftly on ahead of them; he would ask his wife to have ready a stirrup cup as they passed, and he would go on to the doctor’s camp, and tell them there. He would find Pedro on the trail and take him home. * * * * * It was just as the Scout would have wished it to be; just as he had envisaged it. “Tied on his faithful horse”; not Pontiac, Chief of the Ottawas, could have come with greater dignity back to sorrowing followers. Mabel, the lady horse, submitted docilely to the strange burden, seeming to understand and to have a solemn pride in the undertaking; there was a statelier carriage of the homely old head. Rusty, the Airedale, heeled steadily; sometimes he lifted his nose and gave a thin and mournful howl, but in the main he padded down the long trail in silence. Margaret Golinda was waiting for them with hot coffee and with serene and steady cheer; she was as sure, as strong as the hills. Her bright and friendly eyes grew dim when she looked at the burden the lady horse was carrying. “But it was a glorious way for him to go,” she said. “The doctor told me what was coming; if he had lived.” “I wouldn’t believe it,” said Dean Wolcott. “I wouldn’t have let it come! I would have fought it!” She smiled. “This was a better fight. And you must remember this: you gave him all the life he ever had.” Then she turned to Ginger and held out her hands to her. “And you are--the girl?” “Yes,” said Ginger, gladly, meeting the brown hard grip. “I knew you were--somewhere. I’m glad he has you, _now_.” She stood in the doorway of her wise, little gray house and watched them riding away, the small solemn cavalcade. They talked but little, Ginger and her lover. There was too much grief in the air--and too much quiet and believing joy, but she told him about Mary Wiley. “And this winter,” she said, “I will be with Mary Wiley again.” “This winter,” he said quietly, “you will be with me.” There was something in the brief sentence that made her heart turn over; it was the authority, the conviction; it was all that the small group of words meant, all that it stood for. This winter she would be with him. East or west, going to symphonies and settlements and seeing new plays, or riding the range and bringing in the cattle; it didn’t in the least matter where they would be or what they would be doing: this winter--and all the winters in the world and all the summers--she would be with him.