er--she
pictured it and then crushed the picture in her mind and got up and came
out again and stood in the sun.

Then she came down to the boat and stood with her hand on the gunnel,
and, for a moment as she stood thus, the terror of utter loneliness came
to her in a hundred tongues and ways, and always with reference to the
men who had vanished.

It was impossible to stay here alone--alone--absolutely alone; like a
frightened child her mind appealed against this terror; it climbed the
vacant skies and passed over the desolate hills in search of comfort.
Was there a God? To whom could she run for comfort, for escape--?

As if in answer to her wild but unspoken question came a far-off roar
brought on the wind from the great seal beach.

CHAPTER XVII

FRIENDS IN DESOLATION

She turned her face that way and stood for a moment with the faint
breeze blowing her hair. Then she came running up the beach to the
caves. In the men's cave she stood glancing rapidly about her like a
person in a burning house seeking what he may save.

She picked up the tinder box and the box of matches and put them in her
pocket. Then she began to remove everything from the cave. Making a sack
of one of the blankets, she filled it with as much as she could drag
along and brought it to the break in the cliffs where she dumped the
contents.

It took her three journeys. Then, having collected everything in a big
pile, she sat down for a moment to rest. The things would be safe here
till she could fetch them to her new home, and the weather would not
hurt them, except, maybe, the biscuits.

The thought of the biscuits troubled her, and the picture of them lying
exposed in one of the torrential rains. Then she caught sight of a cleft
in the basalt. It was dry and big enough to contain the bags and she
placed them there having taken out some of their contents.

These and a couple of tins of meat she placed in one of the blankets,
making a sack of it. Then she remembered the knife she had left lying on
the sand before the cave where the dead man lay.

She fought against the idea of returning for it. Then her will made her
go.

As she picked up the knife she glanced once again into the cave and once
again caught a glimpse of the naked foot with the toe dug into the sand;
then, placing the knife in its sheath and running like a frightened
child she reached the break, caught up the sack, the extra blanket and
the axe, which she had h