“Don’t wait to see what happens to me,” he went on.  “I’ll either go out or I’ll live—­you really can’t help me any.  Where’s the rifle?”

“The rifle was broken—­when the tree fell.”

“I knew it would be.  I saw it coming.”  He rested, waiting for further breath.  “Beatrice—­please, please don’t stay here, trying to save me.”

“Do you think I would go?” she cried.

“You must.  The food—­is about gone.  Just enough to last one person through to the Yuga cabins—­with berries, roots.  Take the pistol.  There’s six shots or so—­in the box.  Make every one tell.  Take the dead grouse too.  The rifle’s broken and we can’t get meat.  It’s just—­death—­if you wait.  You can just make it through now.”

“And leave you here to die, as long as there’s a chance to save you?” the girl answered.  “You couldn’t get up to get water—­or build a fire—­”

He listened patiently, but shook his head at the end.  “No, Bee—­please don’t make me talk any more.  It’s just death for both of us if you stay.  The food is gone—­the rifle broken.  Your father’s gang’ll be here sooner or later—­and they’d smash me, anyway.  I could hardly fight ’em off with those few pistol shells—­but by God I’d like to try—­”

He struggled for breath, and she thought he had slipped back into unconsciousness.  But in a moment the faltering current of his speech began again.

“Take the pistol—­and go,” he told her.  “You showed me to-day how to give up—­and I don’t want to kill—­your father—­any more.  I renounce it all!  Ezram—­forgive me—­old Ez that lay dead in the leaves.”  He smiled at the girl again.  “So don’t mind leaving me.  Life work’s all spent—­given over.  Please, Beatrice—­you’d just kill yourself without aiding me.  Wait till the sun comes up—­then follow up the river—­”

Unconsciousness welled high above him, and the lids dropped over his eyes.  The gloom still pressed about the cavern, yet a sun no less effulgent than that of which he had spoken had risen for Ben.  It was his moment of renunciation, glorious past any moment of his life.  He had renounced his last, little fighting chance that the girl might live.  And Ezram, watching high and afar, and with infinite serenity knowing at last the true balance of all things one with another, gave him his full forgiveness.

The girl began to strip the wet clothes from his injured body.

XXXVI

The trail was long and steep into Back There for Jeffery Neilson and his men.  Day after day they traveled with their train of pack horses, pushing deeper into the wilds, fording mighty rivers, traversing silent and majestic mountain ranges, climbing slopes so steep that the packs had to be lightened to half before the gasping animals could reach the crest.  They could go only at a snail’s pace,—­even in the best day’s travel only ten miles, and often a single mile was a hard, exhausting day’s work.