It was near the end of December when Pete thought his charges had become sufficiently hardened to undertake the long journey. The weather, if it had not moderated (it would not begin to moderate there until long after spring had brought out the flowers in the distant Park), had settled a little after its first fury. The storms came with less frequency, and the snow had assumed a certain stability with the steadily added weight. Both Marion and Haig bad mastered their snowshoes, and were able to travel slowly after Pete. Moreover, all the delicacies that Pete had brought had been consumed, despite their most careful husbanding, and even the meager supply of salt and pepper would soon be exhausted, leaving only the unseasoned venison of odious memory. The night before the day set for their departure, Pete broiled strips of venison sufficient for a week or more, and stowed them in his knapsack. At dawn they were up, and eagerly making the final preparations. Haig and Marion, in their impatience, would have eaten nothing, but the Indian, true to his tribal habit of filling the stomach before a march, insisted that breakfast should be a methodical and leisurely business. From some recess he drew the last soup tablet, the last onion, and the last of the ground coffee, which he had clandestinely saved against this great event. The feast with which they had celebrated Marion's recovery was now repeated in celebration of their farewell to the cave,--the soup, the rabbit stew and the black coffee. Then, when Pete had fastened their snowshoes securely on their moccasined feet, and had gone out to trample down the fresh snow on the platform before the cave, Haig and Marion stood together for a last look upon the scene of their sufferings. They looked at the dying fire, at the flattened beds of boughs, at the long row of notches on the wall, at the crutches lying among the firewood, at crumpled and ragged boots and bits of worn-out clothing. "Good-by--you!" cried Marion, laughing tremulously, very near to tears. "Yes, good-by!" said Haig. That cave--what had it not meant for him! There was his Valley of the Shadow, into which he had again descended to seek and find the better part of him that he had left there long ago. "Go on out, please!" he said presently. "I'll come in a minute." She looked at him curiously, but obeyed. Haig waited till she had gone, and then shuffled clumsily on his snowshoes across the floor to where, beyond the fire, lay one of Marion's boots. It was a torn and misshapen thing, the sole worn through, the leather curled up from the open toe. He picked it up hastily, and with a swift glance at the mouth of the cavern, thrust it into an inside pocket of his leather coat. * * * * *