y did you run? Why didn't
you stay and fight?"

A low growl rumbled in MacDonald's beard.

"Johnny, Johnny, if I only ha' could!" he groaned. "There was five of them
left when I ran into the cabin an' barricaded myself there with Jane. I
stuck my gun out of the window an' they was afraid to rush the cabin. They
was _afraid_, Johnny, all that afternoon--_an' I didn't have a cartridge
left to fire!_ That's why we went just as soon as we could crawl out in the
dark. I knew they'd come that night. I might ha' killed one or two hand to
hand, for I was big an' strong in them days, Johnny, but I knew I couldn't
beat 'em all. So we went."

"After all, death isn't so very terrible," said Joanne softly, and she was
riding so close that for a moment she laid one of her warm hands on Donald
MacDonald's.

"No, it's sometimes--wunnerful--an' beautiful," replied Donald, a little
brokenly, and with that he rode ahead, and Joanne and Aldous waited until
the pack-horses had passed them.

"He's going to see that all is clear at the summit," explained Aldous.

They seemed to be riding now right into the face of that mysterious rumble
and roar of the mountains. It was an hour before they all stood together at
the top of the break, and here MacDonald swung sharply to the right, and
came soon to the rock-strewn bed of a dried-up stream that in ages past had
been a wide and rushing torrent. Steadily, as they progressed down this,
the rumble and roar grew nearer. It seemed that it was almost under their
feet, when again MacDonald turned, and a quarter of an hour later they
found themselves at the edge of a small plain; and now all about them were
cold and towering mountains that shut out the sun, and a hundred yards to
their right was a great dark cleft in the floor of the plain, and up out of
this came the rumble and roar that was like the sullen anger of monster
beasts imprisoned deep down in the bowels of the earth.

MacDonald got off his horse, and Aldous and Joanne rode up to him. In the
old man's face was a look of joy and triumph.

"It weren't so far as I thought it was, Johnny!" he cried. "Oh, it must ha'
been a turrible night--a turrible night when Jane an' I come this way! It
took us twenty hours, Johnny!"

"We are near the cavern?" breathed Joanne.

"It ain't more'n half a mile farther on, I guess. But we'll camp here.
We're pretty well hid. They can't find us. An' from that summit up there
we can keep watch in both valley