think?"

The fool was actually trying to slip his arm around her without being
too abrupt about it; as if he were taming some creature of the wild
which he wished not to frighten. Marion was drawing herself together,
balancing herself to land a blow on his jaw and then run. She believed
she could outrun him, now that they were in the trail. But at that
moment she caught sight of a figure slinking behind a stump, and she
exclaimed with relief at the sight.

"Why, there's Mike over there--I was wishing--I wanted to ask him--oh,
Mike! Mike!" She pulled herself free of Hank's relaxing fingers and
darted from the trail, straight up the park-like slope of the giant
pines. "Mike! Wait a minute, Mike. I was looking for you!"

It was an unfortunate sentence, that last one. Mike stopped long
enough to make sure that she was coming, long enough to hear what she
said. Then he ducked and ran, lumbering away toward a heavy
outcropping of rock that edged the slope like a halibut's fin. Marion
ran after him, glancing now and then over her shoulder, thankful
because Hank had stayed in the trail and she could keep the great tree
trunks between them.

At the rock wall, so swift was Marion's pursuit, Mike turned at bay,
both hands lifted over his head in a threatening gesture. "Don't yuh
chase me up," he gobbled frenziedly. "Yuh better look out now! Don't
yuh think yuh can take _me_ and hang me for a spy--you're a spy
yourself--You look out, now!" Then he saw that Marion kept on coming,
and he turned and ran like a scared animal.

Though she could not understand what he said, nevertheless Marion
stopped in sheer astonishment. The next moment Mike had disappeared
between two boulders and was gone. Marion followed his tracks to the
rocks; then, fearful of Hank, she turned and ran down the slope that
seemed to slant into Toll-Gate Basin. Hank could track her, of course,
but she meant to keep well ahead of him. So she ran until she must
climb the next slope. Once she saw Mike running ahead of her through
the trees. She wondered what ailed him, but she was too concerned over
her own affairs to give him much thought. Hank called to her; he
seemed to be coming after her, and she supposed he would overtake her
in time, but she kept on through brush and over fallen logs half
buried in the snow that held her weight if she was careful. And when
she was almost ready to despair of reaching the open before Hank, she
saw through the trees the littl