ough to command his tottering body to
stand on two legs, he would go. Now, while he was still too weak to
observe greatly what went on about him and while he slept most of the
time, it was for her to be before him. Fortunately--and were not all
omens bright with hope?--it had not snowed since King made his kill; she
could follow in the trail he had made and it would lead her unerringly
to the spot where he had left the rest of the meat. She had everything
ready, rifle, small packet of food, knife, even matches and strips torn
from the sack for her feet. Down in the gorge, clutching her rifle, she
stood looking, listening. Always the thought of Benny and the other man
was on the rim of her consciousness, and fear is a basic and elemental
emotion. But, though the moon set forth all details in clear relief
against the snow, there was no man in sight, and, in the intense
determination possessing her, she throttled down all fear-thoughts. She
clung with a deep fervour to the thoughts that she and Mark King had put
disaster behind them, that ahead lay hope and happiness, that God was
with her and about her, and that all danger was gone. Down the canon she
saw the broken, uneven snow where Brodie and his men had left their
tracks, irregular trails up which Gratton had come, down which Benny and
the Italian had fled. Upward along the gorge was one deep, straight
path, wide and hard packed, the track of Mark King's crude snow-shoes.
Into this she stepped, thinking even at the time how even Mark King's
trail was characteristic of him and different from that of the other
men; it looked purposeful and confident and, like the man himself,
driving straight on. There was a sense of comfort in treading where he
had trodden before her.

The world slept, but its quiet breathing she seemed to hear as the air
drew through the pines. She turned up the gorge, a tiny dark figure in
an immense white wilderness. The stars shone and she loved them; they
were like bright companionable candles. The moon shed its soft lustre
and she loved it; it thrust shadows back and drove out the dark. The
night was all quiet splendour and peace and serenity. The snow was
crisp, crunching underfoot; sunny days had thawed, clear, cold nights
had frozen, and the crust had begun to form. Before she had gone a dozen
feet she discovered this and its importance to her; where King's weight
on the snow-shoes, along a twice-travelled trail, had packed the snow
and where