and this endurance has descended to the women sprung from them as well as to their sons.
Stephens aired for her benefit the only wraps he had to offer her, the blankets that had been under and over the saddle; but he went to a clump of young pines growing near, and with his hunting-knife hewed off a quantity of the small shoots from the ends of the boughs.
"You'll never guess in a month of Sundays, señorita, what we call these on the frontier," said he, as he proceeded to arrange them in neat layers, to make for her an elastic couch. "Give it up? We call them 'Colorado feathers,' and they're no slouches in the way of feathers neither. Besides, they say the smell of turpentine's mighty wholesome. The doctors in Denver recommend camping out to the consumptives who come out for their health, just that they may get the benefit of them. Spruce makes the best, and it's the most aromatic."
"Here, you get out, Faro," he apostrophised his dog, who had as usual promptly taken possession of the blankets as soon as they were spread down, "you get out of that, that's not your place;" and he pushed him off.
"Oh, don't hurt him!" cried the girl; "he likes it; let him stay."
"Well, all right, then, señorita," he said, pleased that his pet should find favour, "if you don't mind having him there, he'll lie at your feet and keep them warm; and now you'd better lie down and rest yourself all you can, for we aint home yet, and you can bet it's a 'rocky road to Dublin' through this sierra that we've got to go to-morrow"; and with these words he turned away to the fire.
"But," cried she, looking at the provision he had made for her, "you have kept no blanket for yourself; you must take one or you will freeze." His generosity distressed her.
"No fear," he returned without looking at her, while he deliberately settled himself down beside the fire and lit his pipe with a coal, "no fear, señorita. I'm calculating to keep guard anyhow, and there's lots of firewood here. That's the beauty of a mountain camp."
"No, thank you, Mahletonkwa," this was spoken to the chief, who at this juncture came and offered him a blanket, being anxious to conciliate the man whom he now depended on for so much, "not for me, thank you; muchas gratias; I'm all right. I'm going to keep this fire warm, and watch the 'Guardias' circle round the North Star." The "Warders," two bright stars of the Little Bear, act as the hour-hand of a clock which has the Pole for its centre, and by them a frontiersman on night-herd knows when his watch begins and ends.
The Indians, suspicious as ever of a possible attack, kept aloof from the fire, and lay down to sleep at a little distance outside the ring of light. Stephens established himself on the windward side of the fire, and set up the skin of the buck he had shot as a windbreak behind his back against the chill night air of the sierra.