s required for their hidden camp.

It was almost dark when he completed the spruce and cedar lean-to for
Joanne. He knew that to-night they must build no fire, not even for tea;
and when they had laid out the materials for their cold supper, which
consisted of beans, canned beef and tongue, peach marmalade, bread bannock,
and pickles and cheese, he went with Joanne for water to a small creek they
had crossed a hundred yards away. In both his hands, ready for instant
action, he carried his rifle. Joanne carried the pail. Her eyes were big
and bright and searching in that thick-growing dusk of night. She walked
very close to Aldous, and she said:

"John, I know how careful you and Donald have been in this journey into the
North. I know what you have feared. Culver Rann and Quade are after the
gold, and they are near. But why does Donald talk as though we are _surely_
going to be attacked by them, or are _surely_ going to attack them? I don't
understand it, John. If you don't care for the gold so much, as you told me
once, and if we find Jane to-morrow, or to-night, why do we remain to have
trouble with Quade and Culver Rann? Tell me, John."

He could not see her face fully in the gloom, and he was glad that she
could not see his.

"If we can get away without fighting, we will, Joanne," he lied. And he
knew that she would have known that he was lying if it had not been for the
darkness.

"You won't fight--over the gold?" she asked, pressing his arm. "Will you
promise me that, John?"

"Yes, I promise that. I swear it!" he cried, and so forcefully that she
gave a glad little laugh.

"Then if they don't find us to-morrow, we'll go back home?" She trembled,
and he knew that her heart was filled with a sudden lightness. "And I don't
believe they will find us. They won't come beyond that terrible place--and
the gold! Why should they, John? Why should they follow us--if we leave
them everything? Oh-h-h-h!" She shuddered, and whispered: "I wish we had
not brought the gold, John. I wish we had left it behind!"

"What we have is worth thirty or forty thousand dollars," he said
reassuringly, as he filled his pail with water and they began to return.
"We can do a great deal of good with that. Endowments, for instance," he
laughed.

As he spoke, they both stopped, and listened. Plainly they heard the
approaching thud of hoofs. MacDonald had been gone nearer two hours than
one, and believing that it was him, Aldous gave the ow