n pass was impenetrable through all its length to anything except
the uncanny agility of Satan, and so she left the cow-pony in the bottom
of the gorge and climbed the last rise on foot.

On the mountainside above her, it was not easy to locate the cave,
for the slope was clawed into ravines and confused with meaningless
criss-cross gulches. Whatever scrub evergreens grew there stood under
the shade of boulders which threatened each instant to topple over and
go thundering to the base. She had come upon the cave by chance in her
ride with Dan, and now she hunted vainly through the great stones for
the entrance. A fresh wind, chill with the snows of the upper peaks,
pulled and tugged at her and cut her face and hands with flying bits of
sand. It kept up a whistling so insistent that it was some time before
she recognized in the hum of the gale a different note, not of pleasant
music, but a thin, shrill sound that blended with the voice of the wind.

The instant she heard it she stopped short on the lee side of a tall
rock and looked about her in terror. The mountains walked away on every
side, and those resolute masses gave her courage. She listened, for the
big rock cut away the breath of the wind about her ears and she could
make out the whistling more clearly. It was a strain as delicate as a
pin point ray of light in a dark room, but it made Kate tremble.

Until the sound ended she stayed there by the rock, hearkening, but the
moment it ceased she gathered her resolution with a great effort and
went straight toward the source of the whistling. It was only a moment
away, although the wind had made it seem much farther, and she came
on the tall, narrow opening with Joan sitting on a rock just within.
Instead of the blue cloak, she was wrapped in a tawny hide, and the
yellow hair blew this way and that, unsheltered from the wind. The
loneliness of the little figure made Kate's heart ache, made her pause
on her way, and while she hesitated, Joan's head rested back against the
rock, her eyes half closed, her lips pursed, she began to whistle that
same keen, eerie music.

It brought Kate to her in a rush.

"Oh Joan!" she cried. "My baby!"

And she would have swept the child into her arms, but Joan slipped out
from under her very fingers and stood a little distance off with her
hands pressed against the wall on either side of her, ready to dart
one way or the other. It was not sudden terror, but rather a resolute
dete