on the stick that Waite himself had erected
for her convenience. She thought it would
be a long time before any one reached her,
but she had hardly had time to bathe the
disfigured face and straighten the disfigured
body before Henderson was pounding at her
door. Outside stood his pony panting from
its terrific exertions. Henderson had not
seen her before for six weeks. Now he
stared at her with frightened eyes.

"What is it? What is it?" he cried.
"What has happened to you, my -- my
love?"

At least afterward, thinking it over as she
worked by day or tossed in her narrow bunk
at night, it seemed to Catherine that those
were the words he spoke. Yet she could
never feel sure; nothing in his manner after
that justified the impassioned anxiety of his
manner in those first few uncertain moments;
for a second later he saw the body of his
friend and learned the little that Catherine
knew. They buried him the next day in a
little hollow where there was a spring and
some wild aspens.

"He never liked the prairie," Catherine
said, when she selected the spot. "And I