he best possible
trim, until such time as he would have to subject it to severe tests. He
exercised himself daily and he always saw that his bed under the ledge
was dry and warm. He never permitted the fires to go out, and gradually,
as the snow about them melted from the heat, the ground there became
hard and dry.

He was still able to procure food without firing a shot, finding plenty
of rabbits in the deep snow on the hills, but he grew intensely weary of
such a diet, and he felt that if he had to linger much longer he would
kill a deer, although he had been saved by one. Every hour he scanned
the heavens looking for the clouds which he knew would come in time,
since the cold could not endure at such an early period in the autumn.

He had been in his retreat a week when he felt a light and soft touch on
his face, the breath of the west wind. It had almost a summer warmth,
and, then he knew that one of the great changes in temperature, to which
the valley is subject, was coming. Throughout the afternoon the wind
blew, and water began to trickle in the ravine. The sound of soft snow
sliding down the hill was almost constant in his ears. Toward dusk, the
clouds that he had expected came floating up from the horizon's rim, but
he did not believe rain would fall before the next day.

Nevertheless, he took precautions, building a rough floor of dead wood
in the alcove, and arranging to protect himself from the downpour which
he considered inevitable. He also put his stores in the place that would
remain safest and dryest, and lying down, high upon the dead wood, he
fell asleep. He was awakened in the night by a rushing sound. The great
rain that was to destroy the great snow had come, several hours earlier
than he had expected it, and it was a deluge.

The trickle in the ravine became a torrent, and he heard it roaring. The
floor of his little valley was soon covered with six inches of water and
he was devoutly glad that he had built his platform of dead wood, upon
which he could remain untouched by the flood, at least for the present.
That it would suffice permanently he was not sure, as the rain was
coming down at a prodigious rate, and there was no sign that it would
decrease in violence.

He did not sleep any more that night, but sat up, watching and
listening. It was pitchy dark, but he heard the roar of distant and new
streams, and the sliding avalanches of sodden snow. He felt an awe of
the elements, but he was