But again fate had its way with us, setting aside all plans.  When I returned to our encampment, instead of seeing Ellen come out to meet me as I expected, I found her lying in the shade of the little tepee.

“You are hurt!” I cried.  “What has happened?”

“My foot,” said she, “I think it is broken!” She was unable to stand.

As she could, catching her breath, she told me how this accident had happened.  Walking along the stony creek bank, she had slipped, and her moccasined foot, caught in the narrow crack between two rocks, had been held fast as she fell forward.  It pained her now almost unbearably.  Tears stood in her eyes.

So now it was my term to be surgeon.  Tenderly as I might, I examined the foot, now badly swollen and rapidly becoming discolored.  In spite of her protest—­although I know it hurt me more than herself—­I flexed the joints and found the ankle at least safe.  Alas! a little grating in the smaller bones, just below the instep, told me of a fracture.

“Ellen,” said I to her, “the foot is broken here—­two bones, I think, are gone.”

She sank back upon her robe with an exclamation as much of horror as pain.

“What shall we do!” she murmured.  “I shall be crippled!  I cannot walk—­we shall perish!”

“No,” I said to her, “we shall mend it.  In time you will not know it has happened.”  Thus we gave courage to each other.

All that morning I poured water from a little height upon the bared foot, so that presently the inflammation and the pain lessened.  Then I set out to secure flat splints and some soft bark, and so presently splintered and bound the foot, skillfully as I knew how; and this must have brought the broken bones in good juxtaposition, for at least I know that eventually nature was kind enough to heal this hurt and leave no trace of it.

Now, when she was thus helpless and suffering, needing all her strength, how could I find it in my heart to tell her that secret which it was my duty to tell?  How could I inflict upon her a still more poignant suffering than this physical one?  Each morning I said to myself, “To-day, if she is better, I will tell her of Grace Sheraton; she must know.”  But each time I saw her face I could not tell her.

Each day she placed a clean white pebble in a little pile at her side.  Presently there were seven.

“John Cowles,” she said to me that morning, “bring me our writing, and bring me my pen.  To-day I must sign another letter.”  And, smiling, she did so, looking up into my face with love showing on her own.  Had the charcoal been living flame, and had she written on my bare heart, she could not have hurt me more.