She shuddered. But he had not seen. There remained much to do and the hours fled so swiftly. He set to work making the clumsy snow-shoes. He imitated a crude native shoe he had once seen in Alaska; he bent willow wands he had brought from along the edge of the stream, whipping them about with narrow strips of canvas, binding other wands crosswise, making, also of canvas strips, a sort of stirrup for each foot. The last of the weak daylight passed and died gloomily and he was still at his task, bending now by his fire, working on with infinite care. The sticks, brittle with the cold weather, broke under his strong fingers; patiently he inserted others or strengthened the cracking pieces with string. His face, ruddy in the firelight, was impassive; Gloria, looking at him, saw no mere man but a senseless thing of machine levers and steel coils; something tireless and hard and as determined as fate itself. They had made their scanty suppers; after it both were hungry. They had been hungry thus for four days. There remained coffee and sugar enough for another half-dozen meagre meals; here the affluence ended. The bacon was down to a piece of fat two inches thick and seven inches long; there was bacon grease a couple of inches deep in a tomato-can; there was a teacup of flour; there was one small tin of sardines and a smaller one of devilled meat. To-day they were hungry, to-morrow they would be a great deal hungrier, the next day they would begin to starve.... King got up and went out, down the cliffs in the dark, for a last load of wood. When he came back she was lying on her bed, her face from the light. He stood a moment looking at her. Then for the last time he spoke to her: "If I am long gone, you understand why. It would be best to save food all you can; not to stir about much, since exercise means burning up more strength, which must be renewed and by still more food.... There is not a chance in a thousand now that those men will find this place; if they do, there is not a chance in another thousand that they will find the middle cave. You will be safe enough.... And, if I do not get back to-morrow, you will know that within three days more, or four at most, there will be a party in here to bring you out." _Chapter XXVII_ Gloria awoke with a start. She had not heard King go, yet she knew that she was alone in the cave. Alone! She sat up, clutching her blankets about her. Objects all around her were plunged into darkness, but where the canvas let in the morning she saw a patch of drear, chill light. Full morning. Then by now Mark King was far away.