The baby throve upon this nourishment. Its cries no longer disturbed the serenity of the cañon. It slept and ate most of the time, but kindly consented to keep awake in the late afternoon and be gentle and patient when the men charily passed it from hand to hand during the rest before supper. Fletcher regarded it tolerantly as an object of amusement. But Moreau, especially since the feeding episode, had developed a deep, delighted affection for it. Its helplessness appealed to all that was tender in him, and the first faint indications of a tiny formed character were miraculous to his fascinated and wondering observation. He was secretly ashamed of letting the sneeringly indifferent Fletcher guess his sudden attachment, and made foolish excuses to account for the trips to the cabin which frequently interrupted his morning’s work in the stream bed. Lucy’s recovery was slow. The collapse from which she suffered was as much mental as physical. The anguish of the last two years had preyed on the bruised spirit as the hardships of the journey had broken the feeble body. No particular form of ailment developed in her, but she lay for days silent and almost motionless on the bunk, too feeble to move or to speak beyond short sentences. The men watched and tended her, Moreau with clumsy solicitude, Fletcher dutifully, but more through fear of his powerful mate than especial interest in Lucy as a woman or a human being. In his heart he still violently resented Moreau’s action in acquiring her and parting with the valuable horses. Had she possessed any of the attractions of the human female, he could have understood and probably condoned. But as she now was, plain, helpless, sick, unable even to cook for them, demanding care which took from their work and lessened their profits, his resentment grew instead of diminishing. Moreau saw nothing of this, for Fletcher had long ago read the simple secrets of that generous but impractical nature, and knew too much to bring down on himself wrath which, once aroused, he felt would be implacable. At the end of two weeks Lucy began to show signs of improvement. The fragrant air that blew through the cabin, the soothing silence of the foothills, broken only by the drowsy prattle of the river or the sad murmuring of the great pine, began its work of healing. The autumn was late that year. The days were still warm and dreamily brilliant, especially in the little cañon, where the sun drew the aromatic odors from the pines till at midday they exhaled a heavy, pungent fragrance like incense rising to the worship of some sylvan god.