They had lived in the mountain niche some three weeks when Alchise and Kut-le left the camp one afternoon, Alchise on a turkey hunt, Kut-le on one of his mysterious trips for supplies.  Alchise returned at dusk with a beautiful bird which Rhoda and Molly roasted with enthusiasm.  But Kut-le did not appear at supper time as he had promised.  When the meal was almost spoiled from waiting, Rhoda and the Indians ate.  As the evening wore on, Alchise grew uneasy, but he dared not disobey Kut-le’s orders and leave the camp unguarded at night.

Rhoda speculated, torn between hope and fear.  Perhaps the searchers had captured Kut-le at last.  Perhaps he had given up hope of winning her love and had gone for good.  Perhaps, somewhere or other, he was lying badly hurt!  The little group sat up much later than usual, Cesca silently smoking her endless cigarettes, Alchise and Molly talking now in Apache, now in English.  Rhoda was convinced that they were puzzled and worried.

Even after she had lain down on her blankets Rhoda could not sleep.  With Kut-le gone her sense of the camp’s security was gone.  She rose finally and sat beside Alchise who, rifle in hand, guarded the ledge.  There was no moon but the stars were very large and near.  Rhoda was growing to know the stars.  They were remote in the East; in the desert they become a part of one’s existence.  The sense of stupendous distance was greater at night than in the daytime.  The infinite heavens, stretching depth beyond depth, the faint far spaces of the desert, were as if one looked on the Great Mystery itself.

When dawn came, Alchise wakened Cesca, put the rifle into her hands, and hurried back up over the mountain.  The purple shadows had lightened to gray when Rhoda saw Kut-le staggering up the trail from the desert.  Rhoda gave a little cry and ran down to meet him.

“Kut-le!  What happened to you?  We were so worried!”

There was a bloody rag tied just below the young Indian’s knee.  He paused, supporting himself against a rock.  Across his eyes, drawn and haggard with pain, flashed a look of joy that Rhoda, eying the bandage, did not see.

“I was late starting back,” he said briefly.  “In the darkness a bit of the trail gave way, dropped me into a canon and laid my leg open.  I was unconscious a long time and lost a lot of blood, so it has taken me the rest of the night to get here.  Would you mind getting Alchise to help me up the trail?”

“Alchise has gone to look for you.  Lean on me,” said Rhoda simply.

Despite his weakness, the dark blood flushed the young man’s face, while Rhoda’s utter unconsciousness of her changed manner brought a smile to his set lips.  Not if the torture of dragging himself up the trail were to be ten times greater would he now have availed himself of help from Alchise.

“If you will let me put my arm across your shoulder we can make it,” he said as quietly as though his heart were not leaping.