With a glad cry Jane leaped into the darkened room and was about to take the small girl in her arms, but Julie turned away and held her hands out toward Meg, when to their surprise Jane sank down in a worn-out heap on the floor and began to sob bitterly. "Oh, mother, mother!" she cried, as though addressing someone she knew must be present, "help me to take your place with Julie and Gerald. Tell them to forgive me." Meg feared that Jane's long day of anguish had temporarily unbalanced her mind, but Julie, hearing that cry, reached out a comforting hand. "Jane," she said weakly, "don't feel so badly. I guess we were awfully trying, me and Gerald." Passionately Jane caught the child in her arms and held her close. She kissed her forehead and her tumbled hair. Then she reached out a hand to the boy, who had drawn near amazed to see his usually cold, hard sister so affected. "Give me another chance, Gerald!" she cried, tears streaming unheeded down her cheeks. "Don't hate me yet. I'm going to begin all over. I'm going to try to be like mother." A cry of pain from the small girl then caught her attention. "Julie, what is it, dear? Are you hurt? What has happened?" Gerald spoke up: "That's why we came in here. We were headin' down the mountain for the Packard ranch when Julie fell. I guess her ankle is hurt." Meg at once was on her knees unbuttoning the high shoe. The ankle was swollen, but there were no bones broken. "It is a bad sprain," she said. Then, swinging the knapsack which she always carried when on a mountain hike from her back, she took out her emergency kit. She washed the angry looking place with soothing liniment and then wound tightly about it strips of clean white cloth. "Now," she said, "we will have some refreshments." This amazed her listeners and greatly pleased at least one of them. "Gee-golly!" Gerald cried. "I hadn't thought of it before, but I guess I'm starving to death more'n likely." Meg smiled as she produced a box of raisins. "This may not seem much of a menu, but it is all one needs for several days to sustain life." The small boy took a generous handful and gobbled it with speed. Then the mountain girl brought out a canteen. "Bring us some water from the creek," she told him. Jane held out a detaining hand. "Oh, Meg," she implored, "don't send Gerry to that raging torrent. Don't you remember how we heard it roaring?" "But you don't hear it now," was the reply. "The water from the cloudburst has long since gone to the valley to be absorbed, much of it, in the coarse gravel. You'll find Crazy Creek just as it always is." "That's where Julie sprained her ankle," Gerald said. "We were trying to reach it to get a drink." He soon returned with the canteen full of ice-cold water. His eyes were wide. "Say, girls," he began, "we can't make it home tonight, can we? The sun's going down west of our peak right this minute."