ver showed his face again in the cabin; making threats, too,
of what he would do if Murphy came around sneering about the spies.

With daylight came a degree of sanity, and Mike built up the fire
again and cooked his breakfast. Habit reasserted itself and he went
off to his work, muttering his rambling thoughts as he shambled along
the path he and Murphy had beaten in the snow. But he carried his
rifle, which he had never done before, and he stood it close beside
him while he worked. Also he kept an eye on the trail and on
Toll-Gate cabin. He would have been as hard to catch unaware that day
as a weasel.

Once or twice he saw the professor pottering around near the cabin,
gathering pieces of bark off fallen trees to help out their scanty
supply of dry wood. The pines still mourned and swayed to the wind,
which hung in the storm quarter, and the clouds marched soddenly in
the opposite direction or hung almost motionless for a space. The
professor did not come within hailing distance, and seemed wholly
occupied with gathering what bark he could carry home before the
storm, but Mike was not reassured, nor was he thrown off his guard.

He waited until noon, expecting to see the girl come out for more
plotting. When she did not, he went back and cooked a hot dinner,
thinking that the way to get the best of spies on the government is to
watch them closer than they watch you, and to be ready to follow them
when they go off in the woods to plot. So he ate as much as he could
swallow, and filled his pockets with bacon and bread. He meant to keep
on their trail this time, and see just what they were up to.

Marion, however, did not venture out of the cabin. She was very much
afraid that Hank Brown was suspicious of Jack and was trying to locate
Jack's camp. She was also afraid of Hank on her own account, and she
did not want to see him ever again. She was certain that he had tried
hard to overtake her when she went running after Mike, and that she
had escaped him only by being as swift-footed as he, and by having the
start of him.

Then Kate could not walk at all, and with the professor busy outside,
common decency kept Marion in the house. She would like to have sent
Jack a heliograph message, but she did not dare with the professor
prowling around hunting dry limbs and bark. She had no confidence in
the professor's potential kindness toward a fellow in Jack's
predicament--the professor was too good to be trusted. He would