This must have been in The Pilot's mind, for he suddenly held up his horse and burst out: "Poor Gwen, how she loves all this!--it is her very life.

How can she help fretting the heart out of her?
To see this no more!" He flung himself off his bronco and said, as if thinking aloud: "It is too awful! Oh, it is cruel! I don't wonder at her! God help me, what can I say to her ?" He threw himself down upon the grass and turned over on his face.

After a few minutes he appealed to me, and his face was sorely troubled.
"How can one go to her?
It seems to me sheerest mockery to speak of patience and submission to a wild young thing from whom all this is suddenly snatched forever--and this was very life to her, too, remember." Then he sprang up and we rode hard for an hour, till we came to the mouth of the canyon.

Here the trail grew difficult and we came to a walk.

As we went down into the cool depths the spirit of the canyon came to meet us and took The Pilot in its grip.