"The tent's going," he cried back; "all your things will be soaked. Never mind the supper, come and help me." And it seemed in this moment of tumult, that Susan ceased to be a woman to be cared for and protected and became his equal, fighting with him against the forces of the primitive world. The traditions of her helplessness were stripped from her, and he called her to his aid as the cave man called his woman when the storm fell on their bivouac.

They seized on the leaping canvas, he feeling in the water for the tent pegs, she snatching at the ropes. He tried to direct her, shouting orders, which were beaten down in the stuttering explosion of the thunder. Once a furious gust sent her against him. The wind wrapped her damp skirts round him and he felt her body soft and pliable. The grasp of her hands was tight on his arms and close to his ear he heard her laughing. For a second the quick pulse of the lightning showed her to him, her hair glued to her cheeks, her wet bodice like a thin web molding her shoulders, and as the darkness shut her out he again heard her laughter broken by panting breaths.

"Isn't it glorious," she cried, struggling away from him. "That nearly took me off my feet. My skirts are all twined round you."

They got the tent down, writhing and leaping like a live thing frantic to escape. Conquered, a soaked mass on the ground, he pulled the bedding from beneath it and she grasped the blankets in her arms and ran for the wagon. She went against the rain, leaning forward on it, her skirts torn back and whipped up by the wind into curling eddies. Her head, the hair pressed flat to it, was sleek and wet as a seal's, and as she ran she turned and looked at him over her shoulder, a wild, radiant look that he never forgot.

They sat in the wagon and watched the storm. Soaked and tired they curled up by the rear opening while the rain threshed against the canvas and driblets of water came running down the sides. The noise made talking difficult and they drew close together exclaiming as the livid lightning saturated the scene, and holding their breaths when the thunder broke and split its furious way over their heads. They watched it, conscious each in the other of an increased comforting friendliness, a gracious reassurance where Nature's transports made man seem so small.

CHAPTER VII

The Vermilion was swollen. With a bluff on one side and a wide bottom on the other it ran a prosperous, busy stream, brown and ripple-ridged. The trail lay like a line of tape along the high land, then down the slope, and across the bottom to the river. Here it seemed to slip under the current and come up on the other side where it climbed a steep bank, and thence went on, thin and pale, rising and dropping to the ridges till the tape became a thread.

They had been waiting a day for the water to fall. Camped in the bottom under a scattering of trees with the animals grazing on the juicy river grass and the song of the stream in their ears, it had been a welcome break in the monotony of the march. There was always a choice of occupation in these breathing spells. On the first afternoon everybody had sat on the grass at the tent doors mending. To-day the men had revolted and wandered off but Susan continued industriously intent over patches and darns. She sat on a log, her spools and scissors beside her, billows of homespun and calico about her feet.