"David! Where?"

"In Sacramento. I seen him and talked to him."

"Oh, Daddy John, how wonderful! Was he well?"

"Well and hearty, same as he used to be. Plumped up considerable."

"How had he got there?"

"A train behind us picked him up, found him lyin' by the spring where he'd crawled lookin' for us."

"Then, it wasn't Indians? Had he got lost?"

"That's what I says to him first-off - 'Well, gol darn yer, what happened to yer?' and before he answers me he says quick, 'How's Susan?' It ain't no use settin' on bad news that's bound to come out so I give it to him straight that you and Low was married at Humboldt. And he took it very quiet, whitened up a bit, and says no words for a spell, walkin' off a few steps. Then he turns back and says, 'Is she happy?'"

Memory broke through the shell of absorption and gave voice to a forgotten sense of guilt:

"Oh, poor David! He always thought of me first."

"I told him you was. That you and Low was almighty sot on each other and that Low was sick. And he was quiet for another spell, and I could see his thoughts was troublesome. So to get his mind off it I asked him how it all happened. He didn't answer for a bit, standin' thinkin' with his eyes lookin' out same as he used to look at the sunsets before he got broke down. And then he tells me it was a fall, that he clum up to the top of the rock and thinks he got a touch o' sun up there. For first thing he knew he was all dizzy and staggerin' round, goin' this side and that, till he got to the edge where the rock broke off and over he went. He come to himself lying under a ledge alongside some bushes, with a spring tricklin' over him. He guessed he rolled there and that's why we couldn't find him. He don't know how long it was, or how long it took him to crawl round to the camp - maybe a day, he thinks, for he was 'bout two thirds dead. But he got there and saw we was gone. The Indians hadn't come down on the place, and he seen the writing on the rock and found the cache. The food and the water kep' him alive, and after a bit a big train come along, the finest train he even seen - eighteen wagons and an old Ashley man for pilot. They was almighty good to him; the women nursed him like Christians, and he rid in the wagons and come back slow to his strength. The reason we didn't hear of him before was because they come by a southern route that took 'em weeks longer, moving slow for the cattle. They was fine people, he says, and he's thick with one of the men who's a lawyer, and him and David's goin' to the coast to set up a law business there."

The flicker of outside interest was dying. "Thank Heaven," she said on a rising breath, then cast a look at the cabin and added quickly:

"I'll go and tell Low. Maybe it'll cheer him up. He was always so worried about David. You tell Bella and then come to the cabin and see how you think he is."

There was light in the cabin, a leaping radiance from the logs on the hearth, and a thin, pale twilight from the uncovered doorway. She paused there for a moment, making her step light and composing her features into serener lines. The gaunt form under the blanket was motionless. The face, sunk away to skin clinging on sharp-set bones, was turned in profile. He might have been sleeping but for the glint of light between the eyelids. She was accustomed to seeing him thus, to sitting beside the inanimate shape, her hand curled round his, her eyes on the face that took no note of her impassioned scrutiny. Would her tidings of David rouse him? She left herself no time to wonder, hungrily expectant.