-listen!" she persisted.

To please her, he sat erect, and listened. They were very still then,
one of her hands between both of his. And the storm was raging. It was
wilder, wilder. All the fury of Thunder Mountain seemed to be behind
the wind that came shrieking and bellowing down the gulch.

The seconds passed, with dead silence in the cave, and that bedlam let
loose outside.

Then suddenly Haig lifted his head. What was it? There seemed to have
come--No, it was but a mocking voice of the hurricane, one of the
myriad voices of that wintry inferno, mocking them with a half-human
cry. He looked sadly down at Marion, and saw that wondrous smile again
upon her emaciated face. Oh, but this was maddening! Yet because she
wished it, he listened again. And then, out of that tumult--very faint
and far--

"My God! My God!" he shouted.

He leaped to his feet. He forgot his crutches. He flung himself across
the floor of the cave in three reckless bounds, flung himself on the
barrier of logs and limbs, clawing it like a maniac, or a wild beast,
tore his way through it, and stood in the snow on the platform,
calling into the storm, shrieking, bellowing, out-shrieking and
out-bellowing the storm, swaying dizzily in the wind, and clutching at
the air before him in a frenzy.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE MAN WHO DID NOT FORGET

Out of the tempest came the answering halloo; and Haig redoubled his
outcries. Twice it came, whipped and broken by the wind; and then
there was but the wind itself. Exhausted by his efforts, and sick of
desperation and despair, Haig sank back weakly against the rock.
Round and round him whirled the snow; across his face the wind cut
him with savage lashes; in his ears there was nothing, nothing but
the storm. Then, all grew black before him. After all, it had been
an hallucination; he had been as mad as Marion in her delirium; he
had peopled the storm with imaginary beings, had given the wind a
voice it did not know. Crushed by disappointment, acknowledging the
end, he was sinking down upon the snow-covered platform, when,
suddenly--

"Hal-lo-o-o!"

It was nearer and louder than before. Haig straightened up, and again
filled the tumultuous air with hoarse cries. Once more the voice came;
and then out of the white chaos at the right of the cave, almost level
with the platform, a dark form appeared, striding forward with a
peculiar swinging motion, clumsily but sure.

Haig uttered one more call t