"We're barbarians at heart," Mary said once. "Our so-called culture is only skin-deep. Otherwise we couldn't sit over a camp fire and be content. Nor lie in the sun on a mossy rock and feel that blissful sense of complete well-being. People with instincts like those should survive more or less complacently almost anything but loss of freedom. What do shops and streetcars, cities and frontiers mean to us here?" She waved a hand at the ring of mountains, the enclosing forest. "People handicap themselves when they grow too civilized." "I wonder if they do?" Rod mused. "Perhaps. I know people who would be very uncomfortable here--where we have been quite at our ease. It seems to be instinctive with us. We get quite a kick out of it too. Maybe we're throwbacks. Why shouldn't hereditary impressions crop out?" "Maybe," Mary said reflectively. "By all accounts Roderick the first was a man who didn't mind long journeys or isolation. He must have felt at home here, or he wouldn't have made his home in a savage country. Certainly it wasn't compulsory with him. You don't have to throw back very far, Rod, to the self-sufficient type." "And my people," she continued presently. "They were originally New York--upstate, not Manhattan--before the Boston Tea Party. Then they went across the Alleghanies. Then they went to Illinois. Then to Minnesota. Both my grandfathers fought in the Civil War. When they came back from that Minnesota was too crowded for them. With half a dozen other families they trekked across the plains--in '67. They drove their stakes in southern Idaho on the banks of the Snake. Always restless. Always striking out into new territory. Wanting elbow room. Determined to have it. Never taking root for more than one generation. They went into virgin country with their cattle and horses, their tools and rifles, and made homes where there had never been homes. They didn't get rich, but they were always independent, always competent to fend for themselves. Why shouldn't we have an instinct for this, Rod? It's in our blood." "Well, we'll do it again," Rod prophesied. "This is a good retreat. We'll come back." With that as a mark to shoot at when summer came again, they left the Hiding Place one cool September morning. By the coasting schedule Rod knew a steamer should touch at the logging camp across the Inlet that afternoon. They were leaving reluctantly. Their supplies had stretched to the elastic limit, but the limit had been reached. Time had accelerated his pace. It seemed but yesterday that they had come, in burning July. Now the mornings were touched with autumn chill. The vine maples showed glints of russet, streaks of burnished copper. The alders were growing yellow. Frost touched the leaves at night. New snow had fallen on the high peaks. Rain threatened. It was time to go.