. "What about food?"

"It's only a half-mile out of the way to Bill's mine. There we're going
to load the sled with grizzly meat."

It was in Harold's mind that their journey would be far different--down
to the Twenty-three Mile cabin and to the Yuga rather than over Grizzly
River. But for certain very good reasons he kept this knowledge to
himself. His lips opened to tell them that the wolves and coyotes
had already devoured the carcass of the bear; but he caught himself in
time. It would be somewhat hard to explain how he had learned that
fact, in the first place; and in the second, there was a real danger to
his plot if this revelation were made. Likely they would suggest that,
to conserve what little food they had, they start at once. The time had
not yet come to unfold this knowledge.

He nodded. The day passed like those preceding,--simple meals, a few
hours of talk around the fire, such fuel cutting as was necessary to
keep the cabin snug and to provide a supply for the night. This was
their last day in Clearwater,--and Virginia could hardly accept the
truth.

How untrue had been her gayety! In all the white lies of her past, all
the little pretenses that are as much a part of life in civilization as
buildings and streets, she had never been as false to herself as now.
She had never had to act a part more cruel,--that she could feel joy
at the prospect of her departure.

She could deceive herself no longer. The events of the previous day had
opened her eyes--in a small measure at least--and her thoughts
groped in vain for a single anticipation, a single prospect that could
lighten the overpowering weight of her sadness. And the one hope that
came to her was that strange sister of despair,--that back in her old
life, in her own city, full forgetfulness might come to her.

Wasn't it true that she would say good-by to the bitter cold and the
snow wastes? Was there no joy in this? Yet these same solitudes had
brought her happiness that, though now to be blasted, had been a
revelation and a wonder that no words could name or no triumphs of the
future could equal. The end of her adventure,--and she felt it might
as well be the end of her life. Three little days of bitter hardship,
Bill tramping at her side,--and then a long, dark road leading nowhere
except to barren old age and death.

Never again would she know the winter forest, the silence and the
mystery, and the wolf pack chanting with inf