There was no more to do, but ride on, feeling like her executioner; but

"Ride hooly, ride hooly, now, gentlemen,
Ride hooly now wi' me,"

came into my mind; and no man ever kept beside a "wearier burd" on a sadder journey.
   At dusk we came to Belgian Flat, and here Maverick, dismounting, mixed a little whisky in his flask wlth water which he dipped from the pool. She must have recalled who dug the well, and with whom she had drunk in the morning. He held it to her lips. She rejected it with a strong shudder of disgust.
   "Drink it!" he commanded. "You'll kill yourself, carryin' on like this." He pressed it on her, but she turned away her face like a sick and rebellious child.
   "Maybe she'll drink it for you," said Maverick, with bitter patience, handing me the cup.
   "Will you?" I asked her gently. She shook her head, but at the same time she let me take her hand, and put it down from her face, and I held the cup to her lips. She drank it, every drop. lt made her deathly sick, and I took her off her horse, and made a pillow of my coat, so that she could lie down. In ten minutes she was asleep. Maverick covered her with his coat after she was no longer conscious.
   We built a fire on the edge of the lava, for we were both chilled and both miserable, each for his own part in that day's work.
   The flat is a little cup-shaped valley formed by high hills, like dark walls, shutting it in. The lava creeps up to it in front.
   We hovered over the fire, and Maverick fed it, savagely, in silence. He did not recognize my presence by a word--not so much as if I had been a strange dog. I relieved him of it after a whlle, and went out a little way on the lava. At first all was blackness after the strong glare of the fire; but gradually the desolation took shape, and I stumbled about in it, with my shadow mocking me in derisive beckonings, or crouching close, at my heels, as the red flames towered or fell. I stayed out there till I was chilled to the bone, and then went back defiantly. Maverick sat as if he had not moved, his elbows on his knees, his face in his hands. I wondered if he were thinking of that other sleeper under the birches of Deadman's Gulch, victim of an unhappy girl's revolt. Had she loved him? Had she deceived him as well as herself? It seemed to me they were all like children who had lost thelr way home.
   By midnight the moon had risen high enough to look at us coldly over the tops of the great hllls. Their shadows crept forth upon the lava. The fire had died down. Maverlck rose, and scattered the winking brands with his boot-heel.
   "We must pull out," he said. "I'll saddle up, if you will--" The hoarseness in his voice choked him, and he nodded toward the sleeper.
   I dreaded to waken the poor Rose. She was very meek and quiet after the brief respite sleep had given her. She sat quite still, and watched me while I shook the sand from my coat, put it on, and buttoned it to the chin, and drew my hat down more firmly. There was a kind of magnetism in her gaze; I felt it creep over me like the touch of a soft hand.
   When her horse was ready, Maverick brought it, and left it standing near, and went back to his own, without looking toward us.
   "Come, you poor, tired little girl," I said, holding out my hand. She could not find her way at first in the uncertain light, and she seemed half asleep still, so I kept her hand in mine, and guided her to her horse. "Now, once more up," I encouraged her; and suddenly she was clinging to me, and whispering passionately.
   "Can't you take me somewhere? Where are those women that you know?" she cried, shaking from head to foot.
   "Dear little soul, all the women I know are two thousand miles away," I answered.
   "But can't you take me somewhere? There must be some place. I know you would be good to me; and you could go away afterward, and I wouldn't trouble you any more."
   "My child, there is not a place under the heavens where I could take you. You must go on like a brave girl, and trust to your friends, Keep up your heart, and the way will open. God will not forget you," I said, and may He forgive me for talking cant to that poor soul in her bitter extremity.
   She stood perfectly still one moment while I held her by the hands. I think she could have heard my heart beat; but there was nothing I could do. Even now I wake in the night, and wonder if there was any other way--but one; the way that for one wild moment I was half tempted to take.
   "Yes; the way will open," she said very low. She cast off my hands, and in a second she was in the saddle, and off up the road, riding for her life. And we two men knew no better than to follow her.
   I knew better, or I think, now, that I did. I told Maverick we had pushed her far enough. I begged him to hold up and at least not to let her see us on her track. He never answered a word, but kept straight on, as if possessed. I don't think he knew what he was doing. At least there was only one thing he was capable of doing--following that girl till he dropped.
   Two miles beyond the Flat there is another turn, where the shoulder of a hlll comes down and crowds the road, which passes out of sight. She saw us hard upon her, as she reached this bend. Maverick was ahead. Her horse was doing all he could, but it was plain he could not do much more. She looked back, and flung out her hand in the man's sleeve that half covered it. She gave a little whimpering cry, the most dreadful sound I ever heard from any hunted thing.
   We made the turn after her; and there lay the road white in the moonlight, and as bare as my hand. She had escaped us.
   We pulled up the horses, and listened. Not a sound came from the hills or the dark gulches, where the wind was stirring the quaking asps; the lonesome hush-sh made the silence deeper. But we heard a horse's step go clink, clinking--a loose, uncertain step wandering away in the lava.
   "Look! Look there! My God!" groaned Maverick.
   There was her horse limping along one of the hollow ridges, but the saddle was empty.
   "She has taken to the lava!"
   I had no need to be told what that meant; but if I had needed, I learned what it meant before the night was through. I think that if I were a poet, I could add another "dolorous circle" to the wailing-place for lost souls.
   But she had found a way. Somewhere in that stony-hearted wllderness she is at rest. We shall see her again when the sea--the stupid, cruel sea that crawls upon the land--gives up its dead.

This site graciously hosted in Traverse City, MI
by the great folks at Traverse Communication Co.