of food. One only remained on watch, guarding the flock from a little eminence where he stood motionless save for his pretty crest, which the wind blew from side to side. Gard watched him, fairly hushing his own breath lest he alarm the small sentinel, who in turn regarded him, with bright, innocent eyes.

“To think of it,” the man murmured, “the little, little things, so fearless, up here in this—this—secret—place—of—the—Most—High!”

He stopped, in vague surprise at his own speech. He had not meant to say that, but from some neglected recess of his boyhood’s memory the words had sprung, vital with meaning.

“I wish,” he finally began, after a long pause, and ceased speaking as a wave of sickening despair swept over his soul. The idleness of the phrase mocked him; the folly of wishing anything, helpless there in the bitterness of desolation, came 54home to him with cruel force. Then the ache of his spirit’s yearning drew his clenched hands up toward the blue vault.

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“I wish,” he breathed, his heart pounding, his brain awhirl with a sudden vision of the infinite wonder of things, “I wish that—if there is such a thing as God in the world I might come to know it.”

Slowly his hands came down to his sides. The sentinel of the rocks gave a soft little call of reassurance to the flock, which had halted, observant of the gesture, and the birds resumed their feeding. Gard turned for another look at the snowy ramparts on high; at the vast plain below. All their horror was gone, for him, and he began the descent of the mountain with the peaceful visage of one who has been in a good place.

Far into the night he awoke with the feeling of something stirring near him. In the dim firelight he could make out a shadowy figure on the hearth, and he sprang up in haste. A second glance, however, as he sat upon his ocotilla bed, showed him that there was no harm in the visitor shivering there by the coals.

It was a burro, and the listless pose, the drooping ears and the trembling knees proclaimed a sick burro. It was too miserable even to move, 55when Gard threw an armful of brush on the fire and speedily had a blaze by which he could see the intruder plainly. His first glance revealed a jagged, dreadful sore on the shoulder next to the light.

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Speaking very gently, he drew nearer to the burro and 

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