On and on they went until the dragging hours seemed endless. They saw the wheeling progress of the stars; they saw the pools of gloom in the woods deepen and darken; they felt, like thick black padded velvet, the silence grow deeper, until it seemed scarcely ruffled by the thin passing of the night air. Thus they put many a weary, hard-won mile between them and Big Pine. Hours of that monotonous lifting of boot after boot, of stumbling and straightening and driving on; of pushing through brush copses, of winding wearily among the bigger boles of the forest, of sliding down steep places and climbing up others, with always the lure of the more easy way of the road tempting and mocking. "We've got to find water again," said Deveril, out of a long silence. "And we've got to dig ourselves in for a day of it. The dawn's coming." For already the eastern sky stood forth in contrast against west and south and north, a palely glimmering sweep of emptiness charged with the promise of another day. The girl, too tired for speech, agreed with a weary nod. She could think of nothing now, neither of past nor present nor future, save of water, a long, cool bathing of burning mouth and throat, and after that, rest and sleep. Her whole being was resolved into an aching desire for these two simple balms to jaded nature. Water and then sleep. And let the coming day bring what it chose. Long ago the mountain air, rare and sweet and clean, had grown cold, but their bodies, warmed by exertion, were unaware of the chill. But now, with fatigue working its will upon every laboring muscle, they began to feel the cold. Lynette began shivering first; Deveril, when they stopped a little while for one of their brief rests, began to shiver with her. Water was not to be found at every step in these mountains; they labored on another three or four miles before they found it. Then they came to a singing brook which shot under a little log bridge, and there they lay flat, side by side, and drank their fill. "And now, fair lady, to bed," said Deveril, looking at her curiously and making nothing of her expression, since the starlight hid more than it disclosed, and giving her as little glimpse of his own look. "And when, I wonder, did you ever lay you down to sleep as you must to-night?" But he did see that she shivered. And yet, bravely enough, she answered him, saying: "Beggars must not be choosers, fair sir; and methinks we should go down on our knees and offer up our thanks to Our Lady that we live and breathe and have the option of choosing our sleeping places this night." She had caught his cue, and her readiness threw him into a mood of light laughter; he had drunk deep, and his youthful resilience buoyed him up, and he found life, as always, a game far away and more than worth the candle. "You say truly, my fair lady," he said in mock gravity. "'Tis better to sleep among the bushes than dangling at the end of a brief stretch of rope."