He brought fragments of rock to the cave’s mouth, the biggest he could find, boulders which he rolled from the further dark, and with which he struggled mightily as he piled them one on the other.  Higher and higher he built his rude wall, placing the smaller stones at the top.  And in time, after hours of labour, he had hidden the great hole as best he could, leaving only at the side a way to pass in and out which could hardly be seen from below.  Across this he fixed the canvas; were that glimpsed, its grimy-white would appear but a lighter-hued streak of granite.

“If you will come with me, I will show you your hiding-place.”

She lifted her head and looked at him.  No word had passed between them during the back-breaking hours of his labouring.  Again, she thought swiftly, he was seeking to command, to dictate.  Doubtless, in the end she would have arisen and gone with him, since to refuse were madness.  But he had not waited.  He had gone alone into the depths of the cavern; she heard his slow, measured steps receding; she heard them again, slow and measured, as he came back.

“It’s only about thirty paces, straight back,” he was saying.  “My steps, remember, but shortened so that it would be about the same for you.  Say thirty-five.  There I have made a little pile of rocks; you can’t miss it.  That marks the place, just at the side of the rock pile.  That’s where I found the gold.  There is a blind cave back there, just under this one; there’s only a small entrance to it, straight down, a ragged hole in the floor, hardly more than big enough for a man to drop down through.  I had it hidden by dragging a boulder over it.  Now I have shoved the boulder just far enough to one side to let you go through.  Also, I have set bits of stone under its outside edge so that it is fairly balanced; if you go through, a quick tug at it will topple it over to cover the hole again.  There’s air down there, that comes up from below.  And it’s a better place to be than here—­if any one should come.”

She shuddered.  But he had not seen.  There remained much to do and the hours fled so swiftly.  He set to work making the clumsy snow-shoes.  He imitated a crude native shoe he had once seen in Alaska; he bent willow wands he had brought from along the edge of the stream, whipping them about with narrow strips of canvas, binding other wands crosswise, making, also of canvas strips, a sort of stirrup for each foot.  The last of the weak daylight passed and died gloomily and he was still at his task, bending now by his fire, working on with infinite care.  The sticks, brittle with the cold weather, broke under his strong fingers; patiently he inserted others or strengthened the cracking pieces with string.  His face, ruddy in the firelight, was impassive; Gloria, looking at him, saw no mere man but a senseless thing of machine levers and steel coils; something tireless and hard and as determined as fate itself.