ndurance and resourcefulness, lacking swift action and a
culmination in one stirring hour, would once have allured him like a
splendid game. And even now, for one instant, while he sat there
keenly counting the forces on one side and the other, the pride of
battle lighted up his features, and for that instant he was himself
again. But a cruel and timely twinge in his injured leg recalled him
to realities. His back was not to the wall; it was flat on the
ground. He could not walk, he could not stand; and for weeks to come
he would continue to be as helpless as in that moment. To endure a
siege of eight months in the cave its garrison must have huge stores
of food and fuel; pine boughs and moss in lieu of bedding; solid
barricades at the entrances; and countless makeshifts for the comforts
that were denied. And before he should be able to stir it would be too
late. No, it was an idle dream; a month would see the end of both of
them. So he lay back again, and looked up vacantly into the cold, blue
sky.

But Marion, standing at one side and watching him, had seen that
flicker of the fire within, and was grateful for it beyond all reason
or belief. It was all she needed. Her hands were already raw and
bleeding, but she would work them to the bone if he would only guide
and advise and comfort her; and she knew now that she could trust him,
since there was no longer any question whether she should go or stay.

All that day was spent in bringing up fresh boughs and moss for their
beds, and in making them against the wall of the cavern where draughts
would be the least likely to sweep over them; in bestowing their
meager belongings; in hanging the venison from sticks thrust into a
crevice in the rock; in finding the best place for the fire that must
never be allowed to go down, and in planning the storage of food and
fuel.

Marion had no pressing anxiety about food, now that she had brought in
her first deer; but fuel was a different matter. To her own
appreciation of the problem Haig, that evening after dinner, added
some calculations that revealed it to her in its baldest aspects. The
morning, too, disclosed another layer of snow upon the valley. The
winter was coming on without pity, and each succeeding day would see
its lines drawn a little closer round them. There was not an hour, not
a moment to be lost.

At dawn she began, with Tuesday and the rope, to haul dead limbs and
logs, the largest she was able to handle, goi