s arm.

"It is terrible--what I am going to ask of you," she struggled. "You will
think I am a ghoul. But I must have proof! I must--I must!"

She was staring wildly at him, and all at once there leapt fiercely through
him a dawning of the truth. The name was there, seared by hot iron in that
slab of wood. The name! But under the cairn of stones----

Behind them MacDonald had heard. He towered beside them now. His great
mountain-twisted hands drew Joanne a step back, and strange gentleness was
in his voice as he said:

"You an' Johnny go back an' build a fire, Mis' Joanne. I'll find the
proof!"

"Come," said Aldous, and he held out his hand again.

MacDonald hurried on ahead of them. When they reached the camp he was gone,
so that Joanne did not see the pick and shovel which he carried back. She
went into the tent and Aldous began building a fire where MacDonald's had
been drowned out. There was little reason for a fire; but he built it, and
for fifteen minutes added pitch-heavy fagots of storm-killed jack-pine and
spruce to it, until the flames leapt a dozen feet into the air. Half a
dozen times he was impelled to return to the grave and assist MacDonald in
his gruesome task. But he knew that MacDonald had meant that he should stay
with Joanne. If he returned, she might follow.

He was surprised at the quickness with which MacDonald performed his work.
Not more than half an hour had passed when a low whistle drew his eyes to a
clump of dwarf spruce back in the timber. The mountaineer was standing
there, holding something in his hand. With a backward glance to see that
Joanne had not come from the tent, Aldous hastened to him. What he could
see of MacDonald's face was the lifeless colour of gray ash. His eyes
stared as if he had suffered a strange and unexpected shock. He went to
speak, but no words came through his beard. In his hand he held his faded
red neck-handkerchief. He gave it to Aldous.

"It wasn't deep," he said. "It was shallow, turribly shallow, Johnny--just
under the stone!"

His voice was husky and unnatural.

There was something heavy in the handkerchief, and a shudder passed through
Aldous as he placed it on the palm of his hand and unveiled its contents.
He could not repress an exclamation when he saw what MacDonald had brought.
In his hand, with a single thickness of the wet handkerchief between the
objects and his flesh, lay a watch and a ring. The watch was of gold. It
was tarnished, but