At another time she might have seen the world about her clothed in grandeur; now its sublimity was lost I upon her.  It was a ravening beast, an ugly thing, big and brutal, and ... like King.  Oh, how she hated it and him!

When at last he waited for her and told her to get down she had the suspicion that he had gone mad.  Certainly here was no spot to tarry; it was on her lips to demur.  But she looked at his face and slipped stiffly from the saddle.  They were high up on the ridge; Gloria, on foot beside him, clutched at the wind-twisted branch of one of the sprawling cliff growths, in sudden panic that she was being swept from her feet.  Just below them was the deepening cleft in the mountain-side which, further down, widened and descended into the steep-walled gorge.  Through it shot a mad, frothy stream.  A hundred yards further on, high up in the cliffs, was the yawning hole in the rocks.  King, holding Buck’s bridle, looked about him and at the sky.  Gloria read in his manner a hint of uncertainty.  Hoping to influence his decision, she said quickly: 

“Hadn’t we better turn back now?”

He looked at her steadily before answering.

“In what,” he replied in that impersonal way which maddened her, “have you so altered as to be worth a man’s broken promise?” And then she knew that no thought of going back had had any part in his brief indecision.  He was going forward, would go forward in anything he undertook; that was a part of his make-up.  He was merely seeking the best place to unpack and a convenient spot to tether Buck.  They were going to make camp either right here or nearer the cave, perhaps in it.  She looked at the uninviting hole and shivered.  She would know his decision when King saw fit to enlighten her.

Now he merely dumped at her feet the roll from the horse’s back, setting his rifle down against it.  Then he led Buck away, zigzagging tediously, at last passing from sight beyond an out jutting monster crag.  Gloria crouched, seeking to shield herself from the whiplashes of the wind.  She listened to it as it shrieked about the slabs and boulders of granite; the sound was indescribably eerie, filled with unrest, eloquent of the brutal contempt of the eternal for the feeble and transient.  The universe grew utterly lonely; the wind was a whining thing cutting through the silence.  And King was so long in coming back....

The terrifying thought electrified her:  “What if he had deserted her?  What if he had no intention of coming back?” She should have known better; perhaps, deep down within her, she did know better.  But the suspicion brought its wild flutter; she sprang up and grew rigid in tense fright; she felt a strange, glad rush of joy as she saw his hat bobbing up and toward her along the mountain flank.  When he rejoined her she was staring off at nothingness, her back to him.