then he would break
his promise and go. In the meantime he tried to keep himself sane by
doing what he found to do. He gathered the ripe corn in the big man's
garden patch and husked it and stored it in the shed which was built
against the cabin. Then he stored the fodder in a sort of stable built
of logs, one side of which was formed by a huge bowlder, or
projecting part of the mountain itself, not far from the spring, where
evidently it had been stored in the past, and where he supposed the
man kept his horse in winter. He judged the winters must be very
severe for the care with which this shed was covered and the wind
holes stopped. And all the time he worked each day seemed a month of
days, instead of a day of hours.

At last he felt he was justified in trying to learn the cause of the
delay at least, and he baked many cakes of yellow corn meal and
browned them well on the hearth, and roasted a side of bacon whole as
it was, and packed strips of dried venison, and filled his water flask
at the spring. After a long hunt he found empty bottles which he
wrapped round with husks and filled also with water. These he purposed
to hang at the sides of his saddle. He had carefully washed and mended
his clothing, and searching among the big man's effects, he found a
razor, dull and long unused. He sharpened and polished and stropped
it, and removed a vigorous growth of beard from his face, before a
little framed mirror. To-morrow he would take the trail down into the
horror from which he had come.

Now it only remained for him to look well to the good yellow horse and
sleep one more night in the friendly big man's bunk, then up before
the sun and go.

The nights were cold, and he thought he would replenish the fire on
his hearth, for he always had the feeling that at any moment they
might come wearily climbing up the trail, famished and cold. Any night
he might hear the "Halloo" of the big man's voice. In the shed where
he had piled the husked corn lay wood cut in lengths for the
fireplace, and taking a pine torch he stooped to collect a few
sticks, when, by the glare of the light he held, he saw what he had
never seen in the dim daylight of the windowless place. A heavy iron
ring lay at his feet, and as he kicked at it he discovered that it was
attached to something covered with earth beneath.

Impelled by curiosity he thrust the torch between the logs and removed
the earth, and found a huge bin of hewn logs carefully f