d or for a break in the
monotony that was horrible in itself to a man of his type, he saw how
the winter was piling higher and higher its white heaps along the
cliffs above. He spent hours on the cliffs, working his way slowly
upward along the seam in the rocks which he discovered led out above,
digging with his hands for dead branches to replenish his dwindling
stock of firewood. He must choose days for this when the snow so
thickened the air that a man within shouting distance could not have
seen him.

Two weeks, and Wanda did not come to him. Two weeks of inactivity, of
waiting, the hardest trial in the world for a man tingling with energy,
with his work calling to him through every moment of his waking hours.
He had planned that work, going over and over his plans, every step.
He knew just what he should do--when Wanda came.

He could not know why she did not come. He began to fear that she had
left the valley. Then, when he assured himself that she would not have
gone without a word he began to fear that she was ill; that the day
when she took the short cut had been too much for any woman's endurance.

But she was not ill, he was certain of that. During the two weeks
there were only two days when the air cleared enough for him to see the
Leland house. The first came when he had been in hiding three days;
the other two days later. Both times Wanda had come out upon the porch
where with the spy-glass in the cave he could see her plainly. She had
signalled him, using the first few signals of that code they had made
together so merrily. She lifted both hands up to her face and he knew
that her heart was repeating his words, "I love you, dear, with my
whole heart." She loitered on the porch in apparent carelessness, but
as eager as the man watching her, yearning for her, she had lifted her
hood lightly from her head, flashing the message across the miles: "Be
careful. We are being watched." She turned her back and stood for a
long time looking in at the open living room door: "Something has
happened to prevent our meeting to-day."

Several times during the two clear days she repeated her signals. But
for more than a week afterward he had no sight of her. He did not
know, he could only guess vaguely at the truth. One of MacKelvey's men
had come back to the Echo Creek, unexpected by Wanda and Mrs. Leland,
and while he was apparently concerned only in making frequent trips
toward the Bar L-M, Wanda had