in their sheltered gulch were of such fury and continuity
that the hardiest of the ranchmen were unable to prevail against them.
Huntington, half-crazed by the thought of the two days he had allowed
to be lost, had gone farther than any of the others, and had been
rescued with difficulty by some of his neighbors, who found him lying
senseless at the foot of the ascent to the Devil's Chair, where the
wind had hurled him back down the slope. Smythe was among those who
saved him, for the little tutor had let the last stage go without him,
and was one of the most reckless in the attacks on the mountain.

All these efforts having failed, and the winter having fallen with
exceptional suddenness and severity, even. Huntington was forced to
accept the general opinion that nothing more could be done; that they
could only wait for summer, when they could go to the mountain top and
bring back Marion's body--and doubtless Haig's too. And so, said
Huntington, the feud was ended.

One person alone in the Park refused to admit all this. Pete was
forced indeed to admit it in theory, but he was resolved to prove it
or disprove it on his own account. He had studied Thunder Mountain
from the ridge above the ranch house all that day of Sunnysides'
escape, and the next. And he remembered now that a period of calm had
followed the storm on that second day. If Haig or Marion, or both of
them, had by chance reached the flat top in that interval, they might
have crossed, and might be now somewhere in the forests on the other
side.

He went to Parker, talked with him long about the character of the
Black Lake country, induced him to draw the crude map, and then
visited Seth and Claire. Seth shook his head gloomily, but Claire
eagerly proceeded to assemble enough supplies to have loaded down a
pack horse. There followed a pitifully comical struggle with her
before her "first aid" was reduced to what Pete could carry in his
canvas knapsack,--a small roll of underwear, needles and thread,
bandages and a packet of household medicines in addition to Pete's own
selection of a strip of bacon, a dozen onions, two score of vegetable
soup tablets, two cans of condensed milk, small quantities of coffee
and tea, salt and pepper, two cakes of soap and (especially insisted
on by Pete) a plug of black tobacco and a pipe.

All these supplies Pete had saved untouched, living himself on game
shot on the long journey. For nearly five weeks he had struggled
ag