There were scraps of food left; Brodie and his men, in their gold fever, had not so much as thought to gather up the few bits of scanty provisions. She began taking careful stock; she found a scrap of bread that had been knocked to the floor and kicked aside; she picked it up and, carrying a torch with her, began seeking any other fallen morsels. In this search she came once to the hole in the floor through which Brodie and the others had gone down into Gus Ingle's treasure-chamber. And at its side she found something which at this moment was a thousand times more precious in her staring eyes than if it had been so much solid gold. It was a great hunk of fresh meat. Instantly she knew how it had come here. King had killed his bear! That was why he had returned to-night. He had brought it here; had missed her; had dropped it here. And then? She understood now, too, how he had come so unexpectedly into the lowest cave. He had gone down through this hole and had known a passage-way which led on down. She stood by the hole, bending over it, listening, wondering if any man stirred down there. But that was but for a moment. She caught up the bear meat, carrying it in both arms, and hurried back to her fire.
Though she knew little more of cookery than of nursing, she set about the very sensible task of making a strong broth. The proper nourishment that had seemed so impossible a moment ago was now ready at hand.
"God is good," she whispered, a sudden new gush of love and reverence in her heart. "He will help me now."
For herself, since her own strength must be kept up, she cooked a strip of the meat on the coals. Then she went to King and for a long time sat at his side, her eyes upon his white face, her hand clasping his. Again and again she stooped and laid her cheek against the strong but now lax fingers; once she put her lips to his forehead; when she sat back her eyes were wet and the slow tears welled up and trickled unnoticed down her cheeks. But they were tears which left the heart sweetened, tears of tenderness, of gratitude, of sympathy and love.
As the night wore on, since she was determined that King should not be chilled, her fire consumed a great part of the wood. More wood must be brought; to-night or in the morning. She went to the canvas flap and looked out. There were clouds, but also there were wide rifts through which the stars blazed in all of that glorious crystalline beauty of the stars of the winter Sierra. While she stood looking out the moon, almost at the full, gilded a cloud edge, and after a moment broke through like an augury of joy. Stars and moon made the wilderness over into a land of fairy; at ten million points the snow caught the light, flashing it back as though the white robe spread over the solitudes were sewn with gems. Never had the world looked so white as now with a rare light shining upon its smooth purity; it was clean and fresh, gloriously spotless. Where black shadows lay they but accentuated the whiteness across which they fell.
Out of this sleeping, enchanted land, rising above it, sweeping across it, a low voice like a whisper came to her, a whisper in her ears that became a song in her heart. The snow that had, clung to the pines, muting their needles and stilling their branches, had dropped on during the day. Now the night wind which drove the clouds lingered through the pine tops and set them swaying gently in the vast, harmonic rhythm which is like the surging of a distant ocean. The everlasting whisper of the pines, that ancient hushed voice which through the countless centuries has never been still save when briefly silenced by the snow; which had borne its message to Gloria when on that first day she went with Mark King into the mountains; which many a time had mingled with her fancies, tingeing them, leading her to dream of another life than that of city streets; which now, suddenly, set chords vibrating softly in her own bosom. All these days it had been stilled; had it called her ears would have been deaf to it. But now insistently it bore a message to her, such a message as from now on she would hear in the quiet voices of her little camp-fire. To her, attuned by those varying emotions which latterly had had their wills with her, it was the ancient call; the summons back to the real things of his, to the bigness and the true meaning of life. Rising in response to it, awakening in her own breast, were the old human, instinctive influences, sprouting seeds in the blood of her forbears. It was the eternal call of the mother earth that one like Gloria must hear and hearken to and understand before she could set firm feet upon the ashes of a vanquished self to rise to the true things of womanhood. It was the
"… one everlasting Whisper day and night repeated—so:
Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges—
Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!"
Gloria understood. In her heart, lifting her eyes from the white glory of the earth to the bright glory of the sky, she thanked God that she understood.
Benny and the Italian were still alive and might be near? That did not in any way affect the fact that there must be wood brought for King's fire. She turned back for the rifle and the rope. She saw that King had not stirred; that he seemed plunged in a deep, quiet sleep. She stood over him, looking down at him with her love for him softening her eyes. He was going to get well—if she did her part. And her part was so clearly indicated; to give him broth and to keep his fire going. She did not hesitate and she was not afraid as she went down the cliffs. She meant to be Mark King's mate; she meant to be worthy of being his mate. He had not hesitated, he had not been afraid, when one man against five he dropped down into the lowest cave. She, like him, was of pioneer stock. She remembered that impressive monument to pioneer fortitude which stands in the mountains where the highway runs by Donner Lake; as in a vision she saw the little group that crowns the rugged pile. The woman, the pioneer mother, holding her baby to her breast, pressing on with her own mate, looking fearlessly ahead, daring what might come, not lagging behind the man, rather ready to lead the way should he falter. It was a glorious thing to have blood like that in her veins; it was the finest thing in the world to be a woman like that woman.
She stepped down into the packed snow at the base of the cliffs. Here she stood looking up and down the gorge for any sign of Benny or of the Italian or of any other of Brodie's crowd who might be alive and astir. But she saw no one; even Gratton's body, where it had been tumbled out into the snow, was hidden. She heard the deep, quiet breathing of the pines; the canon stream rushed and gurgled and babbled, shouting as it leaped over fails, flinging spray which the moonlight and starlight made over into jewels.