t is!"

Out of the darkness a blacker, sharper shadow rose. Again she called, but
no one answered. "The ranger is away," she exclaimed, in a voice of
indignant alarm. "I do hope he left the door unlocked."

Too numb with fatigue, and too dazed by the darkness to offer any aid,
Wayland waited--swaying unsteadily on his feet--while she tried the door.
It was bolted, and with but a moment's hesitation, she said: "It looks
like a case of breaking and entering. I'll try a window." The windows,
too, were securely fastened. After trying them all, she came back to
where Wayland stood. "Tony didn't intend to have anybody pushing in," she
decided. "But if the windows will not raise they will smash."

A crash of glass followed, and with a feeling that it was all part of a
dream, Wayland waited while the girl made way through the broken sash
into the dark interior. Her next utterance was a cry of joy: "Oh, but
it's nice and warm in here! I can't open the door. You'll have to come in
the same way I did."

He was too weak and too irresolute to respond immediately, and, reaching
out, she took him by the arms and dragged him across the sill. Her
strength seemed prodigious. A delicious warmth, a grateful dryness, a
sense of shelter enfolded him like a garment. The place smelled
deliciously of food, of fire, of tobacco.

Leading him toward the middle of the room, Berrie said: "Stand here till
I strike a light."

As her match flamed up Norcross found himself in a rough-walled cabin, in
which stood a square cook-stove, a rude table littered with dishes, and
three stools made of slabs. It was all very rude; but it had all the
value of a palace at the moment.

The girl's quick eye saw much else. She located an oil-lamp, some
pine-wood, and a corner cupboard. In a few moments the lamp was lit, the
stove refilled with fuel, and she was stripping Wayland's wet coat from
his back, cheerily discoursing as she did so. "Here's one of Tony's old
jackets, put that on while I see if I can't find some dry stockings for
you. Sit right down here by the stove; put your feet in the oven. I'll
have a fire in a jiffy. There, that's right. Now I'll start the
coffee-pot." She soon found the coffee, but it was unground. "Wonder,
where he keeps his coffee-mill." She rummaged about for a few minutes,
then gave up the search. "Well, no matter, here's the coffee, and here's
a hammer. One of the laws of the trail is this: If you can't do a thing
one way, do