e a long time. Glover returned alone--Clem
had disappeared; a girlish figure glided out of the gloom to meet him.

"I couldn't sleep," she whispered. "I heard you leave and dressed to
wait." She looked in the dim light as slight as a child, and with his
hand at her waist he sunk on his knee to look up into her face. "How
can I deserve it all?"

She blinded his upturned eyes in her hands, and not until she found her
fingers were wet did she understand all he had tried to put into his
words.

"Have you any news?" she murmured, as he rose.

"I believe they have found him."

She clasped her hands. "Heaven be praised. Oh, is it sure?"

"I mean, Dancing, the old lineman, has seen his fire. At least, we are
certain of it. We have been watching it two hours. It's a speck of a
blaze away across toward the mines. It never grows nor lessens, just a
careful little campfire where fuel is scarce--as it is now with all the
snow. We've lighted a big beacon on the hill for an answer, and at
daybreak we shall go after him. The planning is all done and I am free
now till we're ready to start."

She tried to make him lie down for a nap on the couch. He tried to
persuade her to retire until morning, and in sweet contention they sat
talking low of their love and their happiness--and of the hills a
reckless girl romped over in old Allegheny, and of the shingle gunboats
a sleepy-eyed boy launched in dauntless fleets upon the yellow eddies
of the Mississippi; and of the chance that should one day bring boy and
girl together, lovers, on the crest of the far Rockies.

Lights were moving up and down the hill when they rose from Clem's
astonishing breakfast.

"You will be careful," she said. He had taken her in his arms at the
door, and promising he kissed her and whispered good-by.

CHAPTER XXII

THE SOUTH ARETE

They had planned a quick relief with a small party, for every hour of
exposure lessened the missing man's chances. Glover chose for his
companions two men: Dancing--far and away the best climber in the
telegraph corps, and Smith Young, roadmaster, a chainman of Glover's
when he ran the Pilot line. Dancing and Glover were large men of
unusual strength, and Young, lighter and smaller, had been known in a
pinch to handle an ordinary steel rail. But above everything
each--even Glover, the youngest--was a man of resource and experience
in mountain craft.

They left the track near the twin bridges with on