ainst unbelievable hardships, fighting like primitive man against
the fiercest enmity of nature; had searched the whole Black Lake
country; and that day, slowly following the direction of the trail up
through the narrowing gulch among the tree tops, the smell of smoke
was brought to his nostrils on the wind, and he traced it along the
foot of the cliff.

"But did you really expect to find us alive?" asked Haig.

"No."

"Then why did you do all this?"

"All I could do. Indian never forgets."

Thereupon he brought out Haig's pipe and his own, and they smoked over
it in silence, late into the night.

Marion awoke the next morning with another look in her eyes. Her fever
was still high, but she was no longer delirious. Too feeble to ask
questions, she only smiled, and took obediently the remainder of the
potion that Pete poured from his flask and heated in the tin-cup among
the embers. On her wakening again it was seen that the fever was
broken. But life in her was only a tiny flame, at times the merest
spark that every gust of wind through the cavern threatened to
extinguish. Hour after hour Haig and the Indian watched it, the one in
such anguish as the repentant murderer suffers as he kneels over the
poor victim of his rage, the other in stolid resignation, seeing that
perhaps he had come too late.

But the spark was the bravest little spark in the world; and it did
not go out. In time Pete dared to give Marion a little weakened milk;
and then, when she responded to the milk, a few sips of soup that was
scarcely thicker than water. And thus from day to day they nursed her
back to some recognizable shadow of what she had been two months
before.

There came an evening when they sat down to a veritable feast. Haig
had stubbornly refused to taste any of the delicacies in Pete's store,
excepting salt and pepper. Besides, with seasoning, the venison was no
longer quite repugnant to his palate; and he and the Indian did very
well on that until the feast was spread. And it was a feast
remembered. There was soup, to begin with, drunk from the two cups
they now possessed; then a rabbit stew, seasoned with SALT AND PEPPER,
and flavored with an ONION; and black coffee (very black indeed, to be
quite exact). Then Haig's and Pete's pipes were lighted; and the
Indian must tell them again the story of the rescue; and let the wind
howl its savagest!

"Poor Claire!" said Marion, with a tremulous little laugh, when Pete
told he