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It was dusk by the time he had his fire built. He had crouched over it for a half-hour, blowing it, coaxing it, wheedling it. There were few twigs or sticks at this height. He was very cold. His heavy sweater was in the pack on the horse’s back. Finally he was rewarded with a feeble flicker, a tiny tongue of flame. He rose from his knees and passed his hand over his forehead with a gesture of utter weariness and despair. And then he stared, transfixed. For on the plateau above him rose a great shaft of fire. The kind of fire that only Pete, the most expert among guides, could build. And as he stared there burst out at him from behind trees, rocks, crevices, a whole horde of imps shrieking with fiendish laughter.

“Ho, ho,” laughed Jessie.

And “Ha, ha!” howled the Harvard hellions.

“Thought you were lost, didn’tcha?”

“Gosh, you looked funny!”

“Your face!—-“

Florian stared at them. He did not smile. He went quietly over to his tiny camp-fire and stamped it out, neatly, as he had been taught to do. He took his can of emergency ration (not to be opened except on command of officer) and hurled it far, far down the mountainside. Jessie Heath laughed, contemptuously. And Florian, looking at her, didn’t care. Didn’t care. Didn’t care.

The nightmare was over in August. Over, that is, for Florian. The rest were to do another four weeks of it, farther into the interior. Florian sickened at the thought of it. When he bade them farewell he was so glad to be free of them that he almost loved them. When he found himself actually on the little jerkwater train that was to connect him with the main line he patted the dusty red plush seat, gratefully, as one would stroke a faithful beast. When he came into the Grand Central station he would have stooped and kissed the steps of the marble staircase if his porter had not been on the point of vanishing with his bags. That night on reaching home he stayed in the bathtub for an hour, just lying there in the warm, soothing liquid, only moving to dapple his fingers now and then as a lazy fish moves a languid fin. God’s country! This was it.

“My, it’s nice to have you back again, Mr. Sykes,” said Mrs. Pet.

“Is your big two-room suite on the next floor vacant?” said Florian, cryptically.

Mrs. Pet stared a little, wonderingly. “Yes, that’s vacant since the Ostranders left, in July. Why do you ask, Mr. Sykes?”

“Nothing,” Florian answered, airily. “Not a thing. Just asked.”

His train had come in at nine. It was eleven now, but he was restless, and a little hungry, and very much exhilarated. “You certainly look grand,” Mrs. Pet had exclaimed, admiringly. “And my, how you’re sunburned!”

He left the Lexington Avenue house, now, and strolled over to the near-by white-tiled restaurant. There, in the window, was the white-capped one, flapping pancakes. Florian could have kissed him. He sat down. A waitress approached him.

“I don’t know,” mused Florian. “I’m sort of hungry, but I don’t just—-“

“The pork and beans are elegant to-night,” suggested the girl.

And “Pork and beans! NO!” thundered Florian.

The girl drew herself up icily. “I ain’t deef. You don’t need to yell.”

Florian looked up at her contritely, and smiled his winning smile. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean–I–I never want to see beans again as long as I live!”

He was down at the store early, early next morning. His practised eye swept the department for possible slackness, for changes, for needed adjustments. The two Maine ex-guides and the chap who knew the Rockies like the palm of his hand welcomed him with Judas-like slaps on the shoulder. “Like it?” they asked him. And, “God’s country–the West,” he answered, mechanically. After that he ignored them. At nine he ran down the two flights of stairs to the third floor. He did not wait for the elevator.

For a moment he could not find her and his heart sank. She might be away on a vacation. Then he spied her in a corner half-hidden by a rack of covert coats. She was hanging them up. The floor was empty of customers thus early. He strode over to her. She turned. Into her eyes there leaped a look which she quickly veiled as had been taught her by a thousand thousand female ancestors.

“I got your postals,” she said.

Florian said nothing.

“My, you’re brown!”

Florian said nothing.

“Did you–have a good time?”

Florian said nothing.

“What–what—-” Her hand went to her throat, where his eyes were fastened.

Then Florian spoke. “How white your throat is!” he said. “How white your throat is!”

Myra stepped out, then, from among the covert coats on the rack. Her head was lifted high on the creamy column that supported it. She had her pride, had Myra.

“It’s no whiter than it was a month ago, that I can see.”

“I know it.” His tone was humble, with a little pleading note in it. “I know a lot of things that I didn’t know a month ago, Myra.”