presently able to
recognize. Snowshoes!

"You don't mean--Can we do it?" cried Haig incredulously.

"Can't stay here," was Pete's short reply.

True; they could not stay there; it was just what Haig had been
thinking, or trying to avoid thinking. But how would Marion be able to
endure that terrible journey over Simpson's Pass? For her part she
said nothing, but her eyes met Philip's; she reached her hand to him,
and he clasped it tightly.

Three weeks after Pete's arrival he began gradually to inure Haig and
Marion to living and moving in the snow. He taught them to walk on
snowshoes, to climb steep slopes on them, to pick their way among the
trees. There were countless falls in deep drifts, and headlong
plunges, and ungraceful wallowings in the snow. But they knew their
lives depended on these labors, and they were even able to laugh at
some of their awkward performances. These exercises were, moreover,
very good for them. Ill-nourished though they were, the natural color
crept back into their cheeks, the blood flowed briskly again, through
their chilled veins, their muscles were strengthened by their
struggles with the winds and the snow that still came on with
unremitted vigor. Then Pete went a step farther in the preparations
for the crucial test. Not only must they spend the greater part of
the day outside the cave, but they must sleep, or try to sleep, a few
hours every night in the snow, wrapped in their blankets, in holes
scooped out under the lee of a snowbank, while the Indian stood guard
nearby.

It was near the end of December when Pete thought his charges had
become sufficiently hardened to undertake the long journey. The
weather, if it had not moderated (it would not begin to moderate there
until long after spring had brought out the flowers in the distant
Park), had settled a little after its first fury. The storms came with
less frequency, and the snow had assumed a certain stability with the
steadily added weight. Both Marion and Haig bad mastered their
snowshoes, and were able to travel slowly after Pete. Moreover, all
the delicacies that Pete had brought had been consumed, despite their
most careful husbanding, and even the meager supply of salt and pepper
would soon be exhausted, leaving only the unseasoned venison of odious
memory.

The night before the day set for their departure, Pete broiled strips
of venison sufficient for a week or more, and stowed them in his
knapsack. At dawn they w