anger here. I can see you all the time, and you can see
me--if I don't run away, or hide." And she laughed a little breathlessly.
"There is no danger, is there, Donald?"

The old hunter shook his head.

"There's no danger, but--you might be lonesome," he said.

Joanne put her pretty mouth close to Aldous' ear.

"I want to be alone for a little while, dear," she whispered, and there was
that mystery in her voice which kept him from questioning her, and made him
go with MacDonald.

In three quarters of an hour they had reached the spur of the mountain from
which MacDonald had said they could see up the valley, and also the break
through which they had come the preceding afternoon. The morning mists
still hung low, but as these melted away under the sun mile after mile of a
marvellous panorama spread out swiftly under them, and as the distance of
their vision grew, the deeper became the disappointment in MacDonald's
face. For half an hour after the mists had gone he neither spoke nor
lowered the telescope from his eyes. A mile away Aldous saw three caribou
crossing the valley. A little later, on a green slope, he discerned a
moving hulk that he knew was a bear. He did not speak until old Donald
lowered the glass.

"I can see for eight miles up the valley, an' there ain't a soul in sight,"
said MacDonald in answer to his question. "I figgered they'd be along about
now, Johnny."

A dozen times Aldous had looked back at the camp. Twice he had seen Joanne.
He looked now through the telescope. She was nowhere in sight. A bit
nervously he returned the telescope to MacDonald.

"And I can't see Joanne," he said.

MacDonald looked. For five minutes he levelled the glass steadily at the
camp. Then he shifted it slowly westward, and a low exclamation broke from
his lips as he lowered the glass, and looked at Aldous.

"Johnny, she's just goin' into the gorge! She was just disappearin' when I
caught her!"

"Going into--the gorge!" gasped Aldous, jumping to his feet. "Mac----"

MacDonald rose and stood at his side. There was something reassuring in the
rumbling laugh that came from deep in his chest.

"She's beat us!" he chuckled. "Bless her, she's beat us! I didn't guess why
she was askin' me all them questions. An' I told her, Johnny--told her just
where the cavern was up there in the gorge, an' how you wouldn't hardly
miss it if you tried. An' she asked me how long it would take to _walk_
there, an' I told her half an