Midnight—­and the valley seemed a tomb!  Did he alone keep wakeful?  The sky was a darker blue, the stars burned a whiter fire, the peaks stood looming and vast, tranquil sentinels of that valley, and the wind rose to sigh, to breathe, to mourn through the cedars.  It was a sad music.  The Indian lay prone, dark face to the stars.  Joe Lake lay prone, sleeping as quietly, with his dark face exposed to the starlight.  The gentle movement of the cedar branches changed the shape of the bright patches on the grass where shadow and light met.  The walls of the valley waved upward, dark below and growing paler, to shine faintly at the rounded rims.  And there was a tiny, silvery tinkle of running water over stones.

Here was a little nook of the vast world.  Here were tranquillity, beauty, music, loneliness, life.  Shefford wondered—­did he alone keep watchful?  Did he feel that he could see dark, wide eyes peering into the gloom?  And it came to him after a time that he was not alone in his vigil, nor was Fay Larkin alone in her agony.  There was some one else in the valley, a great and breathing and watchful spirit.  It entered into Shefford’s soul and he trembled.  What had come to him?  And he answered—­only added pain and new love, and a strange strength from the firmament and the peaks and the silence and the shadows.

The bright belt with its three radiant stars sank behind the western wall and there was a paler gloom upon the valley.

Then a few lights twinkled in the darkness that enveloped the cabins; a woman’s laugh strangely broke the silence, profaning it, giving the lie to that somber yoke which seemed to consist of the very shadows; the voices of men were heard, and then the slow clip-clop of trotting horses on the hard trail.

Shefford saw the Mormons file out into the paling starlight, ride down the valley, and vanish in the gray gloom.  He was aware that the Indian sat up to watch the procession ride by, and that Joe turned over, as if disturbed.

One by one the stars went out.  The valley became a place of gray shadows.  In the east a light glowed.  Shefford sat there, haggard and worn, watching the coming of the dawn, the kindling of the light; and had the power been his the dawn would never have broken and the rose and gold never have tipped the lofty peaks.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Shefford attended to his camp chores as usual.  Several times he was aware of Joe’s close scrutiny, and finally, without looking at him, Shefford told of the visit of the Mormons.  A violent expulsion of breath was Joe’s answer and it might have been a curse.  Straightway Joe ceased his cheery whistling and became as somber as the Indian.  The camp was silent; the men did not look at one another.  While they sat at breakfast Shefford’s back was turned toward the village—­he had not looked in that direction since dawn.