At length the icy stretch was passed, and after resting a few minutes, Sam proceeded to ascend the steep bank with her in his arms. Why she was not permitted to walk she did not know then or afterward. It is possible, even likely, that the men thought their charge was unconscious. She did nothing to cause them to think otherwise. Again they passed among trees, Sam's companions following in his footprints as before. Another halt and a brief command for Davy to go ahead and see that the coast was clear came after a long and tortuous struggle through the underbrush. Twice they seemed to have lost their bearings in the darkness, but eventually they came into the open. "Here we are!" grunted Sam as they hurried across the clearing. "A hard night's work, pals, but I guess we're in Easy Street now. Go ahead, Davy, an' open the trap!" Davy swore a mighty but sibilant oath and urged his thick, ugly figure ahead of the others. A moment later the desperadoes and their victim passed through a door and into a darkness even blacker than that outside. Davy was pounding carefully upon the floor of the room in which they stood. Suddenly a faint light spread throughout the room and a hoarse, raucous voice whispered: "Have you got her?" "Get out of the way--we're near froze," responded Davy gruffly. "Get down there, Bill, and take her; I'm tired carryin' this hundred and twenty pounder," growled Sam. The next instant Rosalie was conscious of being lowered through a trap door in the floor, and then of being borne rapidly through a long, narrow passage, lighted fitfully by the rays of a lantern in the hands of a fourth and as yet unseen member of the band. "There!" said Bill, impolitely dropping his burden upon a pile of straw in the corner of the rather extensive cave at the end of the passage; "wonder if the little fool is dead. She ought to be coming to by this time." "She's got her eyes wide open," uttered the raucous voice on the opposite side; and Rosalie turned her eyes in that direction. She looked for a full minute as if spellbound with terror, her gaze centred at the most repulsive human face she ever had seen--the face of Davy's mother. The woman was a giantess, a huge, hideous creature with the face of a man, hairy and bloated. Her unkempt hair was grey almost to whiteness, her teeth were snags, and her eyes were almost hidden beneath the shaggy brow. There was a glare of brutal satisfaction in them that appalled the girl. For the first time since the adventure began her heart failed her, and she shuddered perceptibly as her lids fell. "What the h---- are you skeering her fer like that, ma," growled Davy. "Don't look at her like that, or--" "See here, my boy, don't talk like that to me if you don't want me to kick your head off right where you stand. I'm your mother, Davy, an'--"