made a turn off to the side
and along the ridge where there was but little snow. By now all those
tracks are wiped out, what with wind and new snow. There's nothing to
lead them this way."

"Then, if we go down quickly, if we get your bag of food and put out the
fire down there, and come right back up, it won't be very long before
our tracks will be gone. And we'll not budge from here until help comes.
Come; let's hurry."

"Coming," said Gratton. "Yes; we must hurry."

She went ahead and began to clamber down the cliffs. Half-way down she
wondered why he was not following. She found a place where she could
cling and look up. Thus she was just in time to see him, standing at the
mouth of the cave, clutching a heavy bag; he had been tying the mouth of
it. Now he cast it outward so that it fell, striking against the
cliff-side, and then rolling and dropping to disappear at last in the
snow-bank below. And then he began, though hesitantly, to follow her.

"That's one thing Mark King won't get," he announced with emphasis. At
last he stood beside her in the snow. "No matter how the game breaks,
whether he comes back or not, and no matter who gets away with the rest,
that bagful is mine! There's a fortune in it, and it's mine." He began
tossing double handfuls of loose snow into the hole which the bag of
gold had made. "When I get a chance," he muttered, "I'll move it
somewhere else."

His avarice disgusted her. Just now the thought of gold sickened.

"We are wasting time," she reminded him.

He followed her again, casting a last look behind him, then looking up
at the sky, grey everywhere except for a long patch of blue.

"What we want is another three or four hours of steady snowing," he was
saying when they slipped into the mouth of the lower cave. "Enough to
hide that and to cover up our paths."

Gloria was already trying to put out the fire; if ill fortune should
lead Brodie's crowd here, it would be just as well if they found no
smouldering sticks to tell them that the fugitives had been here so
short a time ago and could not be far off. She called to Gratton to help
her. He stamped out burning brands while she hastened back and forth,
bringing handfuls of snow with which to extinguish the last glowing
coals. She worked vigorously and swiftly; he only half-heartedly, since
his thoughts were elsewhere.

"Maybe," he said thoughtfully, "I'd better bring that bag in here and
hide it somewhere--far back in the d