He thought he had not expected to see it there, and so could not account for the sinking of his heart when he found it gone. For a few moments he stood looking down the canon hemmed in by its great mountain barriers. He fully realized the fact that he was a prisoner within those barriers, perfectly helpless until released by the brief summer. With bent head he turned his back to the cliff and cautiously retraced his steps while a wildly whirling "squall" suddenly caught him in its clutches. He had gone but a short distance before a sound in the rear caused him to wheel about and listen sharply. Only a smother of snow, swirling up the canon, met his eyes and a blast of the rising wind his ears. Hesitating, he struggled back a few steps and turned his face up toward the cliff. The snow hid it from view. He stood listening again, and, presently, the sound, above him and a little in advance, again mingled with the roar of the wind. Ross broke into a run, panting through the storm, breaking through the crust, struggling to his feet and tumbling on again. It was certainly the call of a human voice, although no words were distinguishable because of the noise of the wind. Ross, obsessed by one idea, raised his voice: "Miller--Weston!" he yelled frantically. "I'm here--below here! Where are you?" But the wind swooped down on him, seized his words and bore them down the canon. Then it suddenly died away, and again the snow fell quietly, mistily, and Ross, looking up, saw, as in a nightmare, a rope dangling across the face of the cliff. In bewildered joyousness he pressed his hand against his eyes and looked again. "It's there!" he cried, "but it certainly wasn't ten minutes ago. That's the queerest--I know I saw straight before----" He opened his lips to call again, but the call was checked by the discovery of a man half-way down the cliff, creeping along on what looked to be a thread of snow fastened diagonally across the dark surface of the rock, but which Ross at once recognized as the narrow ledge he himself had trod only three days before. Slowly the figure was progressing, its feet kicking away the snow lodged on the ledge, its hands clinging to the bare face of the cliff. Then, faintly into the lull of the storm a nervous voice floated down to Ross from the thread-like path. "I'm almost down, I guess, Miller. Hope I can get to the cabin before another squall strikes us." Then, from the top of the cliff, the barely distinguishable words behind the veil of falling snow, "All right. Remember you'll find Doc not half a mile straight ahead. The cabin's on the right, as I've told ye. It's above a bunch of seven spruces. Ye won't need yer snow-shoes--crust'll hold down there." Ross waited to hear no more. "Leslie!" he yelled joyously. "Ho, Leslie! I'm down here. Come on! Hurray for that rope again!"