The Everlasting Whisper

But now insistently it bore a message to her, such a message as from now on she would hear in the quiet voices of her little camp-fire. To her, attuned by those varying emotions which latterly had had their wills with her, it was the ancient call; the summons back to the real things of his, to the bigness and the true meaning of life. Rising in response to it, awakening in her own breast, were the old human, instinctive influences, sprouting seeds in the blood of her forbears. It was the eternal call of the mother earth that one like Gloria must hear and hearken to and understand before she could set firm feet upon the ashes of a vanquished self to rise to the true things of womanhood. It was the "... one everlasting Whisper day and night repeated--so: Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges-- Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!"

Gloria understood. In her heart, lifting her eyes from the white glory of the earth to the bright glory of the sky, she thanked God that she understood.

Benny and the Italian were still alive and might be near? That did not in any way affect the fact that there must be wood brought for King's fire. She turned back for the rifle and the rope. She saw that King had not stirred; that he seemed plunged in a deep, quiet sleep. She stood over him, looking down at him with her love for him softening her eyes. He was going to get well--if she did her part. And her part was so clearly indicated; to give him broth and to keep his fire going. She did not hesitate and she was not afraid as she went down the cliffs. She meant to be Mark King's mate; she meant to be worthy of being his mate. He had not hesitated, he had not been afraid, when one man against five he dropped down into the lowest cave.

She, like him, was of pioneer stock. She remembered that impressive monument to pioneer fortitude which stands in the mountains where the highway runs by Donner Lake; as in a vision she saw the little group that crowns the rugged pile. The woman, the pioneer mother, holding her baby to her breast, pressing on with her own mate, looking fearlessly ahead, daring what might come, not lagging behind the man, rather ready to lead the way should he falter. It was a glorious thing to have blood like that in her veins; it was the finest thing in the world to be a woman like that woman.