His were clear and light with a singularly penetrating gaze, not bold but intent, eyes not used to the detailed observation of the peopled ways, but trained to unimpeded distances and to search the faces of primitive men. They held hers, seeming to pierce the acquired veneer of reserve to the guarded places beneath. She felt a slow stir of antagonism, a defensive gathering of her spirit as against an intruder. Her pride and self-sufficiency responded, answering to a hurried summons. She was conscious of a withdrawal, a closing of doors, a shutting down of her defenses in face of aggression and menace. And while she rallied to this sudden call-to-arms the strange man held her glance across the fire. It was she who spoke slowly in a low voice: "Where do you come from?" "From Taos, and after that Bent's Fort." "What is your name?" "Low Courant." Then with an effort she turned away and bent over the children. When she looked back at him he was rolled in his blanket, and with his face to the fire was asleep. Lucy came presently for the hot water with a bulletin of progress growing each moment more direful. Her eyes fell on the sleeping man, and she said, peering through the steam of the bubbling water: "Who's that?" "A strange man." "From where?" "Taos, and after that Bent's Fort," Susan repeated, and Lucy forgot him and ran back to the tent. There was a gray line in the east when she returned to say the child was born dying as it entered the world, and Bella was in desperate case. She fell beside her friend, quivering and sobbing, burying her face in Susan's bosom. Shaken and sickened by the dreadful night they clung together holding to each other, as if in a world where love claimed such a heavy due, where joy realized itself at such exceeding cost, nothing was left but the bond of a common martyrdom. Yet each of them, knowing the measure of her pain, would move to the head of her destiny and take up her heavy engagement without fear, obeying the universal law. But now, caught in the terror of the moment, they bowed their heads and wept together while the strange man slept by the fire. END OF PART II PART III The Mountains CHAPTER I Fort Laramie stood where the eastern roots of the mountains start in toothed reef and low, premonitory sweep from the level of the plains. Broken chains and spurs edged up toward it. Far beyond, in a faint aerial distance, the soaring solidity of vast ranges hung on the horizon, cloudy crests painted on the sky. Laramie Peak loomed closer, a bold, bare point, gold in the morning, purple at twilight. And the Black Hills, rock-ribbed and somber, dwarf pines clutching their lodges, rose in frowning ramparts to the North and West.