and his eyes bulging with anxiety and fear, he climbed up and
up without disaster, while Marion leaned far forward in the saddle,
her nerves on edge, her eyes alert, and her heart pounding wildly, as
much from excitement as from its struggle with that high altitude.

How long that climb endured she never knew; the actual minutes seemed
to her as hours, their total an eternity. But at last, trembling and
sweating, Tuesday stood on a narrow shelf of granite, with the long
slope behind, and a wall of rock ahead. While the pony rested, Marion
looked to left and right for the continuation of the trail. She could
not see it, but knew there should be an opening somewhere in the wall
that rose sheer some twenty-five or thirty feet above her head. Slowly
riding along the platform, searching for a sign, the wall at her left,
and the declivity at her right, she came to a place where the barrier
curved inward, and was also hollowed out at its base, so that a
shallow cave (speaking loosely) was formed, where some sort of shelter
might have been found from a storm. This possibility flashed into
Marion's mind, for she could not forget the mountain and its ways. She
dismounted to look into the cave, and at two steps started forward
with a cry.

On the rocky floor was a small heap of ashes and charred ends of
sticks. Kneeling quickly, she tore off a glove, and thrust her fingers
into the ashes. They were warm! And near the ashes she discovered the
rind of a thin slice of bacon, and a few crumbs of bread. Philip had
passed Murray's soon after midday; he would have reached the cave,
then, before night; and so he had slept there, and risen at dawn, and
eaten his meagre breakfast, and ridden on.

She leaped to her feet, ran out and mounted her pony, and rode forward
along the platform, searching for the trail.

CHAPTER XXI

IN THE HOLLOW OF THE STORM

Haig arrived at timber line about an hour before nightfall. On the
long trail he had considered thoroughly all the chances of his case,
and was prepared to undergo delays and disappointments. He knew
Thunder Mountain. Even without reckoning on storms (and the vapors
were at that moment settling down on the frowning battlement), it were
foolhardiness, or worse, to attempt the passage of the mountain in the
night. Then he remembered the shallow cave that he had noticed on his
previous visit to the summit; and his plans were made.

He gathered an armful of dry sticks and shreds o