For a moment they eyed each other, glance held glance in a smoldering challenge. The quizzical patronage had gone from his, the gleam of a subdued defiance taken its place. Hers was defiant too, but it was openly so, a surface thing that she had raised like a defense in haste and tremor to hide weakness.
David moved in his blanket, yawned and threw out a languid hand. She leaped to her feet and ran to him.
"David, are you better?" she cried, kneeling beside him. "Are you better, dear?"
He opened his eyes, blinking, saw the beloved face, and smiled.
"All right," he said sleepily. "I was only tired."
She lifted one of the limp hands and pressed it to her cheek.
"I've been so worried about you," she purred. "I couldn't put my mind on anything else. I haven't known what I was saying, I've been so worried."
CHAPTER VI
South Pass, that had been pictured in their thoughts as a cleft between snow-crusted summits, was a wide, gentle incline with low hills sweeping up on either side. From here the waters ran westward, following the sun. Pacific Spring seeped into the ground in an oasis of green whence whispering threads felt their way into the tawny silence and subdued by its weight lost heart and sank into the unrecording earth.