“They continued south, planning to outfit and go back for the gold.  They would have gone back at once, but they had no food and no horses.  Foot by foot, in the weeks that followed, DeBar described the way to the hidden valley, until at last MacDonald knew that he could go to it as straight as an eagle to its nest.  When they reached Tete Jaune he came to me.  And I promised to go with him, Ladygray—­back to the Valley of Gold.  He calls it that; but I—­I think of it as The Valley of Silent Men.  It is not the gold, but the cavern with the soft white floor that is calling us.”

In her saddle Joanne had straightened.  Her head was thrown back, her lips were parted, and her eyes shone as the eyes of a Joan of Arc must have shone when she stood that day before the Hosts.

“And this man, the half-breed, has sold himself—­for a woman?” she said, looking straight ahead at the bent shoulders of old MacDonald.

“Yes, for a woman.  Do you ask me why I go now?  Why I shall fight, if fighting there must be?”

She turned to him.  Her face was a blaze of glory.

“No, no, no!” she cried.  “Oh, John Aldous! if I were only a man, that I might go with you and stand with you two in that Holy Sepulchre—­the Cavern——­If I were a man, I’d go—­and, yes, I would fight!”

And Donald MacDonald, looking back, saw the two clasping hands across the trail.  A moment later he turned his horse from the broad road into a narrow trail that led over the range.

CHAPTER XV

From the hour in which she had listened to the story of old MacDonald a change seemed to have come over Joanne.  It was as if she had risen out of herself, out of whatever fear or grief she might have possessed in her own heart.  John Aldous knew that there was some deep significance in her visit to the grave under the Saw Tooth Mountain, and that from the beginning she had been fighting under a tremendous mental and physical strain.  He had expected this day would be a terrible day for her; he had seen her efforts to strengthen herself for the approaching crisis that morning.  He believed that as they drew nearer to their journey’s end her suspense and uneasiness, the fear which she was trying to keep from him, would, in spite of her, become more and more evident.  For these reasons the change which he saw in her was not only delightfully unexpected but deeply puzzling.  She seemed to be under the influence of some new and absorbing excitement.  Her cheeks were flushed.  There was a different poise to her head; in her voice, too, there was a note which he had not noticed before.