The last light of the setting sun cast film-like webs of yellow and gold through the forest as he turned in the direction of camp.  It was that hour in which a wonderful quiet falls upon the wilderness, the last minutes between night and day, when all wild life seems to shrink in suspensive waiting for the change.  Seven months had taught Roscoe a quiet of his own.  His moccasined feet made no sound.  His head was bent, his shoulders had a tired droop, and his eyes searched for nothing in the mystery about him.  His heart seemed weighted under a pressure that had taken all life from him, and close above him, in a balsam bough, a night bird twittered.  In response to it a low cry burst from his lips, a cry of loneliness and of grief.  In that moment he saw Oachi again at his feet; he heard the low, sweet note of love in her throat, so much like that of the bird over his head; he saw the soft lustre of her hair, the glory of her eyes, looking up at him from the half gloom of the tepee, telling him that they had found their god.  It was all so near, so real for a moment, that he sprang erect, his fingers clutching handfuls of moss.  He looked toward the camp, and he saw something move between the rock and the fire.

It was a wolf, he thought, or perhaps a lynx, and drawing his revolver he moved quickly and silently in its direction.  The object had disappeared behind a little clump of balsam shrub within fifty paces of the camp, and as he drew nearer, until he was no more than ten paces away, he wondered why it did not break cover.

There were no trees, and it was quite light where the balsam grew.  He approached, step by step.  And then, suddenly, from almost under his hands, something darted away with a strange, human cry, turning upon him for a single instant a face that was as white as the white stars of early night—­a face with great, glowing, half-mad eyes.  It was Oachi.  His pistol dropped to the ground.  His heart stopped beating.  No cry, no breath of sound, came from his paralyzed lips.  And like a wild thing Oachi was fleeing from him into the darkening depths of the forest.  Life leaped into his limbs, and he raced like mad after her, overtaking her with a panting, joyous cry.  When she saw that she was caught the girl turned.  Her hair had fallen, and swept about her shoulders and her body.  She tried to speak, but only bursting sobs came from her breast.  As she shrank from him, Roscoe saw that her clothing was in shreds, and that her thin moccasins were almost torn from her little feet.  The truth held him for another moment stunned and speechless.  Like a lightning flash there recurred to him her last words:  “And some day—­the Valley of Silent Men will awaken.”  He understood—­now.  She had followed him, fighting her way through swamp and forest along the river, hiding from him, and yet keeping him company so long as her little broken heart could urge her on.  And then alone, with a last prayer for him—­she had planned to kill