“Johnny, Johnny, if I only ha’ could!” he groaned.  “There was five of them left when I ran into the cabin an’ barricaded myself there with Jane.  I stuck my gun out of the window an’ they was afraid to rush the cabin.  They was afraid, Johnny, all that afternoon—­an’ I didn’t have a cartridge left to fire! That’s why we went just as soon as we could crawl out in the dark.  I knew they’d come that night.  I might ha’ killed one or two hand to hand, for I was big an’ strong in them days, Johnny, but I knew I couldn’t beat ’em all.  So we went.”

“After all, death isn’t so very terrible,” said Joanne softly, and she was riding so close that for a moment she laid one of her warm hands on Donald MacDonald’s.

“No, it’s sometimes—­wunnerful—­an’ beautiful,” replied Donald, a little brokenly, and with that he rode ahead, and Joanne and Aldous waited until the pack-horses had passed them.

“He’s going to see that all is clear at the summit,” explained Aldous.

They seemed to be riding now right into the face of that mysterious rumble and roar of the mountains.  It was an hour before they all stood together at the top of the break, and here MacDonald swung sharply to the right, and came soon to the rock-strewn bed of a dried-up stream that in ages past had been a wide and rushing torrent.  Steadily, as they progressed down this, the rumble and roar grew nearer.  It seemed that it was almost under their feet, when again MacDonald turned, and a quarter of an hour later they found themselves at the edge of a small plain; and now all about them were cold and towering mountains that shut out the sun, and a hundred yards to their right was a great dark cleft in the floor of the plain, and up out of this came the rumble and roar that was like the sullen anger of monster beasts imprisoned deep down in the bowels of the earth.

MacDonald got off his horse, and Aldous and Joanne rode up to him.  In the old man’s face was a look of joy and triumph.

“It weren’t so far as I thought it was, Johnny!” he cried.  “Oh, it must ha’ been a turrible night—­a turrible night when Jane an’ I come this way!  It took us twenty hours, Johnny!”

“We are near the cavern?” breathed Joanne.

“It ain’t more’n half a mile farther on, I guess.  But we’ll camp here.  We’re pretty well hid.  They can’t find us.  An’ from that summit up there we can keep watch in both valleys.”

Knowing the thoughts that were in MacDonald’s mind, and how full his heart was with a great desire, Aldous went to him when they had dismounted.

“You go on alone if there is time to-night, Mac,” he said, knowing that the other would understand him.  “I will make camp.”

“There ain’t no one in the valley,” mused the old man, a little doubtfully at first.  “It would be safe—­quite safe, Johnny.”

“Yes, it will be safe.”

“And I will stand guard while John is working,” said Joanne, who had come to them.  “No one can approach us without being seen.”