ere up, and eagerly making the final
preparations. Haig and Marion, in their impatience, would have eaten
nothing, but the Indian, true to his tribal habit of filling the
stomach before a march, insisted that breakfast should be a methodical
and leisurely business. From some recess he drew the last soup tablet,
the last onion, and the last of the ground coffee, which he had
clandestinely saved against this great event. The feast with which
they had celebrated Marion's recovery was now repeated in celebration
of their farewell to the cave,--the soup, the rabbit stew and the
black coffee.

Then, when Pete had fastened their snowshoes securely on their
moccasined feet, and had gone out to trample down the fresh snow on
the platform before the cave, Haig and Marion stood together for a
last look upon the scene of their sufferings. They looked at the dying
fire, at the flattened beds of boughs, at the long row of notches on
the wall, at the crutches lying among the firewood, at crumpled and
ragged boots and bits of worn-out clothing.

"Good-by--you!" cried Marion, laughing tremulously, very near to
tears.

"Yes, good-by!" said Haig.

That cave--what had it not meant for him! There was his Valley of the
Shadow, into which he had again descended to seek and find the better
part of him that he had left there long ago.

"Go on out, please!" he said presently. "I'll come in a minute."

She looked at him curiously, but obeyed. Haig waited till she had
gone, and then shuffled clumsily on his snowshoes across the floor to
where, beyond the fire, lay one of Marion's boots. It was a torn and
misshapen thing, the sole worn through, the leather curled up from the
open toe. He picked it up hastily, and with a swift glance at the
mouth of the cavern, thrust it into an inside pocket of his leather
coat.

* * * * *

It was a wonderful, thrilling, terrifying journey, filled with
hardships and perils. Caution and sheer toil of travel held them to
slow progress. They went through vast forests, among the very tops of
the tall pines; they climbed wide, bare slopes where the winds had
almost stripped the snow from the gaunt rocks; they descended into
sheltered valleys where the deer went scurrying at their approach;
they crossed deep gulches packed half-full of blown and drifted snow;
they passed close to the edges of precipices where a false step would
have sent them whirling down into white a