For half a mile the road climbed through deep forest. Marion walked steadily along, taking no pains to hide her tracks in the snow that lay there white as the day on which it had fallen. Bluejays screamed at her as she passed, but there was no other sound. Even the uneasy wind was quiet that day, and the faint scrunching of Marion's feet in the frozen snow when she doubled back on a curve in the trail, came to Kate's ears quite plainly. At the top of the hill where the wind had lifted the snow into drifts that left bare ground between, Marion stopped and listened, her head turned so that she could watch the winding trail behind her. She thought she heard the scrunch of Kate's feet down there, but she was not sure. She looked at the scrubby manzanita bushes at her right, chose her route and stepped widely to one side, where a bare spot showed between two bushes. Her left foot scraped the snow in making the awkward step, but she counted on Kate being unobserving enough to pass it over. She ducked behind a chunky young cedar, waited there for a breath or two and then ran down the steep hillside, keeping always on the bare ground as much as possible. Lower down, where the sun was shut away and the wind was sent whistling overhead to the next hilltop, the snow lay knee deep and even. But Kate would never come this far off the trail, Marion was sure. She believed that Kate suspected her of walking down to the valley, perhaps even to town, though the distance was too great for a casual hike of three hours or so. But there was the depot, not quite at the foot of the mountain; and at the station was the agent's wife, who was a friendly little person. Marion had made it a point to mention the agent's wife in an intimate, personal way, as though she were in the habit of visiting there. Mrs. Morton had an awful time getting her clothes dry without having them all smudged up with engine smoke, she had said after her last trip. Then she had stopped abruptly as though the remark had slipped out unaware. It was easy enough to fool poor Kate. But there was a chance that poor Kate would walk clear down to the station, and find no Marion. In that case, Marion decided to invent a visit to one of the nearest ranches. That would be easy enough, for if Marion did not know any of the ranchers, neither did Kate, and she would scarcely go so far as to inquire at all the ranches. That would be too ridiculous; besides, Kate was not likely to punish herself by making the trip just for the sake of satisfying her curiosity.