Beatrice knew one thing and one alone: that she must not give way to the devastating terror in her heart. There was mighty work to do, and she must keep strong. Her only wish was to kneel beside him, to lift the bleeding head into her arms and let the storm and the darkness smother her existence; but her stern woods training came to her aid. She began the stupendous task of freeing him from the imprisoning tree limbs.

The pine knots flickered feebly; and by their light she looked about for Ben's axe. Her eyes rested on the broken gun first: then she saw the blade, shining in the rain, protruding from beneath a broken bough. She drew it out and swung it down.

Some of the lesser limbs she broke off, with a strength in her hands she did not dream she possessed. The larger ones were cut away with blows incredibly strong and accurate. How and by what might she did not know, but almost at once the man's body was free except for the tree trunk that wedged him against a dead log toward which he had leaped for shelter.

She seemed powerless to move it. Her shoulders surged against it in vain. A desperate frenzy seized her, but she fought it remorselessly down. Her self-discipline must not break yet. Seeing that she could not move the tree itself, she thrust with all her power against the dead log beside which Ben lay. In a moment she had rolled it aside.

Then for the first time she went to her knees beside the prone form. Ben was free of the imprisoning limbs, but was his soul already free of the stalwart body broken among the broken boughs? She had to know this first; further effort was unavailing until she knew this. Her hand stole over his face.

She found no reassuring warmth. It was wet with the rain, cold to the touch. His hair was wet too, and matted from some dreadful wound in the scalp. Very softly she felt along the skull for some dreadful fracture that might have caused instant death; but the descending trunk had missed his head, at least. Very gently she shook him by the shoulders.

Her stern self-control gave way a little now. The strain had been too much for human nerves to bear. She gathered him into her arms, still without sobbing, but the hot tears dropped on to his face.

"Speak to me, Ben," she said quietly. The wind caught her words and whisked them away; and the rain played its unhappy music in the tree foliage; but Ben made no answer. "Speak to me," she repeated, her tone lifting. "My man, my baby—tell me you're not dead!"

Dead! Was that it—struck to the earth like the caribou that fell before his rifle? And in that weird, dark instant a light far more bright than that the flickering pine knots cast so dim and strange over the scene beamed forth from the altar flame of her own soul. It was only the light of knowledge, not of hope, but it transfigured her none the less.

All at once she knew why she had hurled the poisoned cup from his hand, even though her father's life might be the price of her weakness. She understood, now, why these long weeks had been a delight rather than a torment; why her fears for him had gone so straight to her heart. She pressed his battered head tight against her breast.

"My love, my love," she crooned in his ear, pressing her warm cheek close to his. "I do love you, I do, I do," she told him confidingly, as if this message would call him back to life. Her lips sought his, trying to give them warmth, and her voice was low and broken when she spoke again. "Can't you hear me, Ben—won't you try to come back to me? If you're dead I'll die too—"

But the man did not open his eyes. Would not even this appeal arouse him from this deep, strange sleep in which he lay? He had always been so watchful of her—since that first day—so zealous for her safety. She held him closer, her lips trembling against his.

But she must get herself in hand again! Perhaps life had not yet completely flickered out; and she could nurse it back. She dropped her ear to his breast, listening.

Yes, she felt the faint stirring of his heart. It was so feeble, the throbs were so far apart, yet they meant life,—life that might flush his cheeks again, and might yet bring him back to her, into her arms. He was breathing, too; breaths so faint that she hardly dared to believe in their reality. And presently she realized that his one hope of life lay in getting back to the fire.

For long hours he had been lying in the cold rain; a few more minutes would likely extinguish the spark of life that remained in his breast. Her hand stole over his powerful frame, in an effort to get some idea of the nature of his wounds.

One of his arms was broken; its position indicated that. Some of his ribs were crushed too—what internal injuries he had that might end him before the morning she did not know. But she could not take time to build a sledge and cut away the brush. She worked her shoulder under his body.

Wrenching with all her fine, young strength she lifted him upon her shoulder; then, kneeling in the vines, she struggled for breath. Then thrusting with her arm she got on her feet.

His weight was over fifty pounds greater than her own; but her woods training, the hard work she had always done, had fitted her for just such a test as this. She started with her burden toward the cave.

She had long known how to carry an injured man, suspending him over her shoulder, head pointed behind her, her arms clasping his thigh. With her free arm she seized the tree branches to sustain her. She had no light now; she was guided only by the faint glow of the fire at the cavern mouth.

After a hundred feet the load seemed unbearable. Except for the fact that she soon got on the well-worn moose trail that followed the creek, she could scarcely have progressed a hundred feet farther. As it was, she was taxed to the utmost: every ounce of her reserve strength would be needed before the end.

At the end of a hundred yards she stopped to rest, leaning against a tree and still holding the beloved weight upon her shoulder. If she laid it down she knew she could not lift it again. But soon she plunged on, down toward the beacon light.

Except for her love for him, and that miraculous strength that love has always given to women, she could not have gone on that last, cruel hundred yards. But slowly, steadily, the circle of light grew brighter, larger, nearer; ever less dense were the thickets of evergreen between. Now she was almost to the glade; now she felt the wet grass at her ankles. She lunged on and laid her burden on her bed.

Then she relaxed at his feet, breathing in sobbing gasps. Except for the crackle of the fire and the beat of the rain, there was no sound in the cave but this,—those anguished sobs from her wracked lungs.

But far distant though Ben was and deep as he slept—just outside the dark portals of death itself—those sounds went down to him. He heard them dimly at first, like a far-distant voice in a dream, but as the moments passed he began to recognize their nature and their source. Sobs of exhaustion and distress—from the girl that was in his charge. He lay a long time, trying to understand.

On her knees beside him Beatrice saw the first flutter of his eyelids. In awe, rather than rapture, her arms crept around him, and she kissed his rain-wet brow. His eyes opened, looking wonderingly into hers.

She saw the first light of recognition, then a half-smile, gentle as a girl's, as he realized his own injuries. Of course Ben Darby would smile in such a moment as this; his instincts, true and manly, were always to try to cheer her. Presently he spoke in the silence.

"The tree got me, didn't it?" he asked.

"Don't try to talk," she cautioned. "Yes—the tree fell on you. But you're not going to die. You're going to live, live—"

He shook his head, the half-smile flickering at his lips. "Let me talk, Beatrice," he said, with just a whisper of his old determination. "It's important—and I don't think—I have much time."

Her eyes widened in horror. "You don't mean—"

"I'm going back in a minute—I can't hardly keep awake," he said. His voice, though feeble, was preternaturally clear. She heard every kind accent, every gentle tone even above the crackle of the fire without and the beat of the rain. "I think it's the limit," he went on. "I believe the tree got me—clear inside—but you must listen to everything I say."

She nodded. In that eerie moment of suspense she knew she must hear what he had to tell her.

"Don't wait to see what happens to me," he went on. "I'll either go out or I'll live—you really can't help me any. Where's the rifle?"

"The rifle was broken—when the tree fell."

"I knew it would be. I saw it coming." He rested, waiting for further breath. "Beatrice—please, please don't stay here, trying to save me."

"Do you think I would go?" she cried.

"You must. The food—is about gone. Just enough to last one person through to the Yuga cabins—with berries, roots. Take the pistol. There's six shots or so—in the box. Make every one tell. Take the dead grouse too. The rifle's broken and we can't get meat. It's just—death—if you wait. You can just make it through now."

"And leave you here to die, as long as there's a chance to save you?" the girl answered. "You couldn't get up to get water—or build a fire—"

He listened patiently, but shook his head at the end. "No, Bee—please don't make me talk any more. It's just death for both of us if you stay. The food is gone—the rifle broken. Your father's gang'll be here sooner or later—and they'd smash me, anyway. I could hardly fight 'em off with those few pistol shells—but by God I'd like to try—"

He struggled for breath, and she thought he had slipped back into unconsciousness. But in a moment the faltering current of his speech began again.

"Take the pistol—and go," he told her. "You showed me to-day how to give up—and I don't want to kill—your father—any more. I renounce it all! Ezram—forgive me—old Ez that lay dead in the leaves." He smiled at the girl again. "So don't mind leaving me. Life work's all spent—given over. Please, Beatrice—you'd just kill yourself without aiding me. Wait till the sun comes up—then follow up the river—"

Unconsciousness welled high above him, and the lids dropped over his eyes. The gloom still pressed about the cavern, yet a sun no less effulgent than that of which he had spoken had risen for Ben. It was his moment of renunciation, glorious past any moment of his life. He had renounced his last, little fighting chance that the girl might live. And Ezram, watching high and afar, and with infinite serenity knowing at last the true balance of all things one with another, gave him his full forgiveness.

The girl began to strip the wet clothes from his injured body.