The switchback of the plain rose and fell under her horse's busy hoofs. It rose higher, and ever higher, as she approached the western slopes. She left the fenced pastures behind her, and the last signs of the life to which she was now committed. Before her the woodlands rose up shrouded in their dark foliage. The mourning aspect of the pines suited her temper; she felt as though their drooping boughs were in harmony with the bereavement of her soul. She plunged amidst the serried aisles of leafless trunks with something like welcome for their shadows. She rode on regardless of distance and direction. From the crest of a hill she looked down upon narrow mountain creek surging between borders of pale green foliage. The sound of the waters came up to her, and the wilderness of it all appealed, as, at that moment, nothing else could have appealed. She pressed her blowing horse forward, and rode down to the banks so densely overgrown. She leaped from the saddle. She relieved her horse of its saddle and flung herself upon the mossy ground in the shelter of a cluster of spruce. The humid heat was oppressive. The tumbling waters were unable to stir the atmosphere. But their music was soothing, and the sight of their turbulent rush seemed to hold sympathy for her troubled heart. And so she lay there, her head propped upon a supporting hand, and yielded herself to the sway of her emotions. After a while tears dimmed her eyes. They overflowed down her cheeks. She had reached the end of endurance before yielding to her woman's pitiful weakness. Time had no meaning now. Place had lost its influence. She saw nothing, knew nothing but the trouble which had robbed her of all she lived for. Then came the inevitable. Her tears eventually relaxed the tension of her nerves, and, after several ineffectual attempts to keep them open, the weight of the atmosphere closed her eyes and yielded her the final mercy of sleep. * * * * * * Elvine awoke with a start. She awoke with the conviction of the presence of the man she had met in the hill regions before. She knew some one was near her, but, for the moment---- Yes. She sat up. A pair of brown eyes were gazing down into hers. Then came the voice, and it was low, and gentle. It had nothing startling in it. "Why, say, an' I've been hunting your trail this hour, taking you for--some one else." Nan had been standing with her arm linked through her horse's reins. Now she relinquished them, and flung herself upon the ground before the startled woman. Elvine stared at her with unease in her dark eyes. Nor did she gain reassurance from the pretty face with its soft brown hair, and the graceful figure beneath its brown cloth riding suit. Yet she was not insensible to the companionship. Her greater fears had been of the man, Sikkem, who had been in her waking thoughts. "You were following my tracks?" she demanded uncertainly. Nan's eyes grew grave.