She urged Tuesday forward. The trail went far out to the right at an easy gradient, turned sharply, and came back to reach out as far to the left. It was more difficult than Marion had imagined, for the reason that the loose stones afforded an ill footing for the pony, which slipped and slid and stumbled, often going to his knees, and more than once barely avoiding a fall that would have sent horse and rider rolling down to be caught by the network of stunted trees. But Tuesday was sure of foot; and so, with muscles quivering under the strain, and his eyes bulging with anxiety and fear, he climbed up and up without disaster, while Marion leaned far forward in the saddle, her nerves on edge, her eyes alert, and her heart pounding wildly, as much from excitement as from its struggle with that high altitude. How long that climb endured she never knew; the actual minutes seemed to her as hours, their total an eternity. But at last, trembling and sweating, Tuesday stood on a narrow shelf of granite, with the long slope behind, and a wall of rock ahead. While the pony rested, Marion looked to left and right for the continuation of the trail. She could not see it, but knew there should be an opening somewhere in the wall that rose sheer some twenty-five or thirty feet above her head. Slowly riding along the platform, searching for a sign, the wall at her left, and the declivity at her right, she came to a place where the barrier curved inward, and was also hollowed out at its base, so that a shallow cave (speaking loosely) was formed, where some sort of shelter might have been found from a storm. This possibility flashed into Marion's mind, for she could not forget the mountain and its ways. She dismounted to look into the cave, and at two steps started forward with a cry. On the rocky floor was a small heap of ashes and charred ends of sticks. Kneeling quickly, she tore off a glove, and thrust her fingers into the ashes. They were warm! And near the ashes she discovered the rind of a thin slice of bacon, and a few crumbs of bread. Philip had passed Murray's soon after midday; he would have reached the cave, then, before night; and so he had slept there, and risen at dawn, and eaten his meagre breakfast, and ridden on. She leaped to her feet, ran out and mounted her pony, and rode forward along the platform, searching for the trail. CHAPTER XXI IN THE HOLLOW OF THE STORM Haig arrived at timber line about an hour before nightfall. On the long trail he had considered thoroughly all the chances of his case, and was prepared to undergo delays and disappointments. He knew Thunder Mountain. Even without reckoning on storms (and the vapors were at that moment settling down on the frowning battlement), it were foolhardiness, or worse, to attempt the passage of the mountain in the night. Then he remembered the shallow cave that he had noticed on his previous visit to the summit; and his plans were made.