She heard, too, the low rising sigh of the wind in the balsam and
the silvery tinkle of the brook, and sounds only imagined or
nameless. Yet a stern and insupportable silence weighed her down.
This dark canon seemed at the ends of the earth. She felt
encompassed by illimitable and stupendous upflung mountains,
insulated in a vast, dark, silent tomb.

Kells suddenly came to her, treading noiselessly, and he leaned over
her. His visage was a dark blur, but the posture of him was that of
a wolf about to spring. Lower he leaned--slowly--and yet lower. Joan
saw the heavy gun swing away from his leg; she saw it black and
clear against the blaze; a cold, blue light glinted from its handle.
And then Kells was near enough for her to see his face and his eyes
that were but shadows of flames. She gazed up at him steadily, open-
eyed, with no fear or shrinking. His breathing was quick and loud.
He looked down at her for an endless moment, then, straightening his
bent form, he resumed his walk to and fro.

After that for Joan time might have consisted of moments or hours,
each of which was marked by Kells looming over her. He appeared to
approach her from all sides; he round her wide-eyed, sleepless; his
shadowy glance gloated over her lithe, slender shape; and then he
strode away into the gloom. Sometimes she could no longer hear his
steps and then she was quiveringly alert, listening, fearful that he
might creep upon her like a panther. At times he kept the camp-fire
blazing brightly; at others he let it die down. And these dark
intervals were frightful for her. The night seemed treacherous, in
league with her foe. It was endless. She prayed for dawn--yet with a
blank hopelessness for what the day might bring. Could she hold out
through more interminable hours? Would she not break from sheer