Ross seemed to consider the matter for a minute. Then, "N--o, as long as she's up there, she'd better stay. We can't spare you to go. You might call her to the phone--" "I can't. She's off somewhere on the peak, taking in the view," Jack replied. "She grabbed my sweater and beat it, an hour or so ago, and I don't know where she went.... No, I don't think she tried that. She knows she couldn't get there. She said she wanted to see all she could of it while she had the chance.... What?... Oh, sure, she's got sense enough to take care of herself, far as that goes. Seems to be one of the independent kind.... All right. I'll call up if she comes back, and she can talk to you herself." But he did not call up the supervisor, for Marion did not come back. At daybreak, when Jack could no longer fight down his uneasiness, and went to look for her, he found her crouched between two boulders that offered some shelter from the wind without obstructing the view. She was huddled in his sweater, shivering a little with the dawn chill but scarcely conscious of the fact that she was cold. Her lids were red-rimmed from staring up too long, at the near stars and down at the remote mountains--as they looked to be that night. She seemed rather to resent interruption, but in a few minutes she became human and practical enough to admit that she was hungry, and that she supposed it was time to think about getting home. When she got up to follow Jack to the station, she walked stiffly because of her cramped muscles; but she didn't seem to mind that in the least. She made only one comment upon her vigil, and that was when she stopped in the door of the station and looked back at the heaving cloud of smoke that filled the eastern sky. "Well, whatever happens to me from now on, I'll have the comfort of knowing that for a few hours I have been absolutely happy." Then, with the abruptness that marked her changes of mood, she became the slangy, pert, feather-headed Marion Rose whom Jack had met first; and remained so until she left him after breakfast to go home to Kate, who would be perfectly wild. CHAPTER TWELVE KATE FINDS SOMETHING TO WORRY OVER Kate may have been wild, but if so she managed to maintain an admirable composure when Marion walked up to the door of the cabin. She did not greet her best friend with hysterical rejoicings, probably because she had been told of her best friend's safety soon after dark the night before, and had since found much to resent in Marion's predicament and the worry which she had suffered before Marion's message came. "Well!" she said, and continued brushing her hair. "Have you had any breakfast?" "Ages ago. Where's everybody?" Marion flung down her hat and made straight for the hammock.