iscarded shawl about her shoulders.

"You go right back ter bed. I reckon ye kin trust me ter warn him." Her
eyes were full of warlike fire. "I kin go quicker then you, an' I won't
pause till I've got thar an' told him."

"Ye'll fare right back again, won't ye?" quavered the sick woman. "An'
fotch me tidin's--thet he got away safe."

Blossom had been a little stoop-shouldered of late with that
carelessness of carriage that comes from grief, but now again she was
lance-like in her straightness and vibrant with the determination of a
Valkyr.

"I'll come back ter ye," she vowed and then she burst out: "I reckon
this day I kin pay back some leetle part of ther debt I owes to Turney.
God knows he's done enough fer me!"

She went over the steep path with the light fleetness of some wild
thing--and of course she did not know that after her, unseen and silent
as a shadow, followed a slouching figure, using her as a guide. She did
not know either that, as she left the more traveled ways and turned
abruptly into the thicketed forest, that figure was joined by two
others, or that one of them, after a few whispered words, struck off to
communicate with more distant members of the hidden pack.

A wild haste drove her for she knew that Turner trusted the secrecy of
that cave, known, as he thought, only to his friends. Every moment she
could gain for him would mean a distance put between him and his peril.

Several times she paused just long enough to look about and assure
herself that she was not being followed--and then went forward again,
falsely reassured by the silence and seeming emptiness of the wintry
woods.

Pantingly she came to the mouth of the cave. Before it lay a small
plateau, gashed across by a gulch that went down a sheer hundred feet
and littered with piles of broken and gigantic rock. The opening to the
grotto itself was tucked back between these great bowlders, and for
that reason had remained so nearly undiscovered. Just outside the
fissure, she halted and gave the old signal of the owl's call. Thrice
she repeated it, and then as she stood with her hands pressed to her
heart, she saw a face appear, and a moment later Bear Cat had thrust
himself lengthwise out of the bottle neck, and stood at her side, his
face glowing with surprised delight for her coming.

"Blossom!" he cried. "What brought ye?" and in his voice throbbed the
rebirth of wild hope for the miracle which, he had told himself, would
never c