Courant hid a growing irritation, which once
escaped him in a query as to whether she thought David, if he got away
from the Indians, could possibly catch them up. She answered that if
he had escaped with a horse he might, and fell again to her listening
and watching. At the night camp she ordered Daddy John to build the
beacon fire higher than ever, and taking a rifle moved along the
outskirts of the light firing into the darkness. Finally, standing
with the gun caught in the crook of her arm, she sent up a shrill call
of "David." The cry fell into the silence, cleaving it with a note of
wild and haunting appeal. Courant went after her and brought her back.
When they returned to the fire the old man, who was busy with the
cooking, looked up to speak but instead gazed in silence, caught by
something unusual in their aspect, revivifying, illuminating, like the
radiance of an inner glow. It glorified the squalor of their clothing,
the drawn fatigue of their faces. It gave them the fleeting glamour of
spiritual beauty that comes to those in whom being has reached its
highest expression, the perfect moment of completion caught amid life's
incompleteness.
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