he will do it--just as he will attack the
biggest bear or climb the most dangerous peak. He is one who can bring
things about. It is very safe to talk in this room."

Then all was quite clear. Marco and The Rat understood.

No more was said about the Sign. It had been given and that was
enough. The old woman told them that they must sleep in one of her
bedrooms. The next morning one of her neighbors was going down to the
valley with a cart and he would help them on their way. The Rat knew
that she was thinking of his crutches and he became restless.

"Tell her," he said to Marco, "how I have trained myself until I can do
what any one else can. And tell her I am growing stronger every day.
Tell her I'll show her what I can do. Your father wouldn't have let me
come as your aide if I hadn't proved to him that I wasn't a cripple.
Tell her. She thinks I'm no use."

Marco explained and the old woman listened attentively. When The Rat
got up and swung himself about up and down the steep path near her
house she seemed relieved. His extraordinary dexterity and firm
swiftness evidently amazed her and gave her a confidence she had not
felt at first.

"If he has taught himself to be like that just for love of your father,
he will go to the end," she said. "It is more than one could believe,
that a pair of crutches could do such things."

The Rat was pacified and could afterwards give himself up to watching
her as closely as he wished to. He was soon "working out" certain
things in his mind. What he watched was her way of watching Marco. It
was as if she were fascinated and could not keep her eyes from him.
She told them stories about the mountains and the strangers who came to
climb with guides or to hunt. She told them about the storms, which
sometimes seemed about to put an end to the little world among the
crags. She described the winter when the snow buried them and the
strong ones were forced to dig out the weak and some lived for days
under the masses of soft whiteness, glad to keep their cows or goats in
their rooms that they might share the warmth of their bodies. The
villages were forced to be good neighbors to each other, for the man
who was not ready to dig out a hidden chimney or buried door to-day
might be left to freeze and starve in his snow tomb next week. Through
the worst part of the winter no creature from the world below could
make way to them to find out whether they were all dead or