e
explained. It would bother a man to get down there now. But he offered
to try it, if he might be excused from the station for a few hours. He
said he would be willing to go down and tell them she was all right,
or, a little later, he might even take a chance of getting her across.
But it would take some time, he was afraid.

Ross seemed to consider the matter for a minute. Then, "N--o, as long
as she's up there, she'd better stay. We can't spare you to go. You
might call her to the phone--"

"I can't. She's off somewhere on the peak, taking in the view," Jack
replied. "She grabbed my sweater and beat it, an hour or so ago, and I
don't know where she went.... No, I don't think she tried that. She
knows she couldn't get there. She said she wanted to see all she could
of it while she had the chance.... What?... Oh, sure, she's got sense
enough to take care of herself, far as that goes. Seems to be one of
the independent kind.... All right. I'll call up if she comes back,
and she can talk to you herself."

But he did not call up the supervisor, for Marion did not come back.
At daybreak, when Jack could no longer fight down his uneasiness, and
went to look for her, he found her crouched between two boulders that
offered some shelter from the wind without obstructing the view. She
was huddled in his sweater, shivering a little with the dawn chill but
scarcely conscious of the fact that she was cold. Her lids were
red-rimmed from staring up too long, at the near stars and down at the
remote mountains--as they looked to be that night. She seemed rather
to resent interruption, but in a few minutes she became human and
practical enough to admit that she was hungry, and that she supposed
it was time to think about getting home.

When she got up to follow Jack to the station, she walked stiffly
because of her cramped muscles; but she didn't seem to mind that in
the least. She made only one comment upon her vigil, and that was when
she stopped in the door of the station and looked back at the heaving
cloud of smoke that filled the eastern sky.

"Well, whatever happens to me from now on, I'll have the comfort of
knowing that for a few hours I have been absolutely happy." Then, with
the abruptness that marked her changes of mood, she became the slangy,
pert, feather-headed Marion Rose whom Jack had met first; and remained
so until she left him after breakfast to go home to Kate, who would be
perfectly wild.

CHAPTER TW