Marion not having returned, Murray would start out to find
her. There was not one chance in a thousand that, at this season,
there would be such another day as the one now ending, and ending in
storm. But suppose that Murray should make his way across the summit,
and find them. Murray could do nothing for a man with a broken leg at
the bottom of a gulch with a cliff on one side and miles on miles of
mountain forest on the other sides. As for Marion, if she would not go
at his, Haig's, command, she would certainly pay little heed to
Murray. So Murray would accomplish nothing. However, it would not come
to that. Murray would be driven back by the winds. He would ride down
to the Park and give the alarm. Search parties would be formed, and
they would assail the mountain. But fifty men would be no stronger
than one man on Thunder Mountain. It was just possible that some of
them might force their way across the flat between storms. But every
day that possibility, such as it was, would grow less. It would be
madness for the girl to wait. She had crossed the mountain once; she
knew the way; and if the winds should permit rescuers to come to her
they would permit her to go to them. It was her only chance, however
desperate; to remain where she was meant certain death.

Fourth. She would not, it was quite clear, stir from his side as long
as he was alive. Therefore he must do quickly what he had tried to do
before.

The idea was so familiar to him by now that it required no contemplation.
He raised his head, and looked toward the stone where his revolver lay;
and then toward the aspen grove where Marion labored. His gaze rested
on her for some minutes. It was too late for her to start to-night,
even if there were no storm on the mountain. And if he did it now she
would face a night of solitude and terror, perhaps would not live
through it. He would wait till morning; and when she should have gone
for wood, or water--

She came back presently with an armload of small limbs she had hacked
from the youngest trees. Her left hand bled where she had awkwardly
struck it with the hatchet; and there were tears in her eyes, which
she tried to conceal from him. He was sorry for her--and angry. It was
not his fault; he had done all he could, even to brutality.

"Did you tell Huntington, or his wife, what you were going to do?" was
his first speech.

"No. But I sent Mr. Smythe--he rode with me as far as Norton's--I sent
him back with a