At last it came no more. She had reached the barricade. She paid out the tow-line, and with its noosed end over her arm, mounted the trunk. She halted on the root, her breath coming hard and quick, and met his look again across the rim. "What made you?" he asked, his voice shaking. "What made you? You might have slipped. You might have started the whole slide." She did not answer; she could not; she was tired beyond speech. She climbed slowly, with great difficulty, up over the edge, struggled to her feet, stumbled, and sank down. He could not break her fall, as he had once, long ago, in the windfall, but he moved enough to draw her head to his shoulder. "What made you?" he repeated. "I’m not worth it. What made you?" And he kissed her lips. He relieved her arm of the dragging rope, and tried to draw the tow up between the two trunks; but she stopped him. "You mustn’t," she said. "You need all your strength. You must save yourself for that ride. I—I’m very str-o-ng, Paul. Only wait—just a moment." "Of course we’ll wait." He anchored the tow by slipping the lariat noose over the jagged top of the slab on which he leaned. "It’s all right. There’s no hurry." The chinook caught her loosened hair and it fell like a shaken web, over her drenched shoulders, her waist. The sunlight struck from it the best colors of his prospect; glints of copper shading through the gold. He never had seen anything as beautiful except her face. She gathered the shining mass in her hands and tried hurriedly to divide it in a braid, but he put his arm around her again and drew her head against his breast ihe contact of her hair thrilled him; spirals of it caught and clung to his hand. His immeshed fingers lost their power. Then he felt her whole warm body tremble. "It was too hard for you," he said. "You shouldn’t have tried it. But I love you for it; I love you." "I don’t know how I ever could have doubted it." She lifted her head and looked at him. A flush rose in her face; she saw him through sudden mist. "I did doubt; I heard a monstrous story and I—believed it. "Was it about Louise?" "Yes," her voice was almost a whisper,—"Louise and—you."