. "Pack up your trunks and let's
be moving."

"Only too gladly," the girl responded, falling into his mood. "I never
did care much for this place anyway."

But suddenly a reflection came to her.

"How are we to find our way in this pitch darkness?" she asked. "I
don't know how many matches you have with you, but at the most they
can't last long. And the time may come when a match would be more
precious than a diamond."

Drew took out his bag again, and, taking the greatest precautions not
to drop one, counted the matches by the sense of touch.

"Just thirty-two," he announced when he had counted them twice.

"Only thirty-two!" echoed Ruth. "And we may need a hundred and
thirty-two before we get to the other mouth of the cave."

For a moment Drew pondered.

"You're right, as always, Ruth," he agreed. "We can't depend on the
matches alone. We'll have to get something that will serve as a torch.
While I was digging, I remember I came across many branches of trees
that had been carried down by the slide in its rush. We'll see if we
can't make some torches out of them."

He set lustily to work and soon had as many as ten good-sized sticks
that promised to supply his need. He was afraid that not being
seasoned wood they would prove difficult to light. But there proved to
be a resinous quality in the wood that atoned for its greenness, and
before long he had a torch that burned steadily though rather murkily.

"Eureka!" he cried waving it aloft.

"Good for you, Allen," applauded Ruth. "Now give me the rest of those
sticks to carry and you go ahead with the lighted torch."

"I'll carry them myself," he protested.

"No you won't," she said decidedly, at the same time gathering them up
in her arms. "You'll have the torch in one hand and you need to have
the other free for emergencies."

He recognized the common sense of this, but found it hard to let her do
it.

"It's too much like the Indians," he said. "You know that with them
the buck carries his dignity, while his squaw carries everything else."

"But I'm not your squaw," slipped saucily from Ruth's lips before she
could realize the possible significance of her remark.

"Not yet," replied Allen daringly, wanting to bite his tongue out a
moment later for having taken advantage of her slip.

"But let's hurry now, Ruth," he went on hastily to cover their mutual
confusion. "Follow close in my steps and don't keep more than two or
three feet be