He knelt by her, his eyes swimming with tears and pity, and fondled her and comforted her.
“Here is meat,” he said, “only live till I return from this hunt, and I will look after you.”
“You will take me—even now,” she said.
“Even now,” said Sunrise, “for the fault is not yours. And between us two it shall be as tho’ this thing had never happened.”
She sobbed in his arms.
“Only live,” he said. “Only live—and I will return as soon as I may.”
As he turned tenderly from her, and shot along the trail, it seemed to Dawn that Sunrise was shining with strength and beauty.
All that afternoon he ran, and all that night, and even to him it seemed wonderful that it should be so. His breath came and went softly like that of a sleeping child, his muscles were like those of a man who has eaten and drunk and slept deep. There was no labor in his movements. He was like a fire that feeds on its own progress. He was running on the tireless feet of love and hate.
In the morning, he came out on a cup-like and barren plain that was between the foothills of the mountains and the mountains themselves, and a mile before him, running on the feet of fear, waist deep in the white mist of the morning, he saw the man.