"Yes, I've been that far, but you mustn't think o' goin' further," added the woman, still suspicious. "I'll tell you what! Murray'll go with you." "By no means!" Marion protested. "It isn't necessary at all. I can follow trails well enough." "I wish you'd let Murray go with you. He'll be glad to show you----" "No. Thank you just the same, Mrs. Murray, but----" "And you'll not try to go past timber line?" "Don't worry about that, please! I know I could never go where men have failed. I've heard all about Thunder Mountain, and I just want to see it, near. Besides----" She did not finish, but turned quickly away. This sign of emotion was not hidden from Mrs. Murray, and it heightened her anxiety. Lord only knew what the girl'd try to do once she got out of their sight! But where the intellectual and argumentative Smythe had failed, what could be expected of these simple mountain folk, who for all their sturdy independence were not a little awed by the superior poise and distinction of their visitor? Moreover, Marion was at this moment entirely honest in her assurance that she intended to go no farther than timber line. If the idea that lay deep in the back of her mind had grown since its inception some hours before, it was yet formless and unrecognized; if her purpose now had her firmly gripped, she was as yet unconscious of it, obeying it subconsciously, while she told herself, as she told Mrs. Murray, that she wanted only to satisfy her aching heart by doing merely all that a girl could do. To make sure that Philip had not already failed--that he had not been thrown back from the very edge of the fatal crest--that he did not now lie somewhere on the last steep slope above timber line, where she might see and save him: this was the utmost of her design in setting out that morning against the protests of her hosts. Yielding at last, where she could avail no more, the ranchwife fixed up a simple luncheon of bread and butter and jam, which she tied in a little package at Marion's saddlebow. And then, with a final word of warning that she must stop at timber line, an' be back at the house 'fore dark, or she, Mrs. Murray, would be wild, and he, Murray, would have to go searching for her, the good woman let her go, and waved a fat farewell to her until Marion was out of sight among the trees.