along with soft silken rustle. Sometimes the gray veils hid his boots.
It was a long, toilsome climb up that yielding, dragging ascent, and
he had already been lame and tired. By the time he had put his horse
away twilight was everywhere except in the west. The Indian girl left
her pony in the corral and came like a shadow toward the house.

Shefford had difficulty in finding the foot of the stairway. He
climbed to enter a large loft, lighted by two lamps. Presbrey was
there, kneading biscuit dough in a pan.

"Make yourself comfortable," he said.

The huge loft was the shape of a half-octagon. A door opened upon the
valley side, and here, too, there were windows. How attractive the
place was in comparison with the impressions gained from the outside!
The furnishings consisted of Indian blankets on the floor, two beds,
a desk and table, several chairs and a couch, a gun-rack full of
rifles, innumerable silver-ornamented belts, bridles, and other Indian
articles upon the walls, and in one corner a wood-burning stove with
teakettle steaming, and a great cupboard with shelves packed full of
canned foods.

Shefford leaned in the doorway and looked out. Beneath him on a roll
of blankets sat the Indian girl, silent and motionless. He wondered
what was in her mind, what she would do, how the trader would treat
her. The slope now was a long slant of sheeted moving shadows of sand.
Dusk had gathered in the valley. The bluffs loomed beyond. A pale
star twinkled above. Shefford suddenly became aware of the intense
nature of the stillness about him. Yet, as he listened to this
silence, he heard an intermittent and immeasurably low moan, a fitful,