Conditions for escape were more favorable than at any time since their departure from the canoe landing, that late spring day of long ago.  The wolf was gone; Ben’s guard of her was ever more lax.  The season was verdant:  she could supplement what supplies she took from the cave with roots and berries, and the warm nights would enable her to carry a minimum of blankets.  She knew that she could never hope to succeed in the venture except by traveling light and fast.  On the other hand she would need all of Ben’s remaining supplies to bring her through:  in a few more days the stores would be so low that she could not attempt the trip.  Human beings cannot survive, in the forests of the north, on roots and berries alone.  Tissue-building flour and sustaining meat are necessary to climb the ridges and battle the thicket.

How could she obtain these things?  For all his seeming carelessness Ben kept a fairly close watch on her actions, and he would discover her flight within a few hours.  Stronger than she, and knowing every trail and pass for miles around he could overtake her with ease.  He gave her no opportunity to seize his rifle, load it and turn it against him, thus making her escape by force.

The fact that she would leave him without food mattered not one way or another.  He would still have his rifle, and his small stock of rifle cartridges would procure sufficient big game to sustain him for weeks and months to come.  After all, the whole issue depended on the rifle,—­the symbol of force.  It would be his instrument of vengeance when his chance came.  If she could only take this weapon from him she need not fear the coming of her rescuers.  In that case Ben would be helpless against them.

Unfortunately, the gun rarely left his hands.  If indeed she should attempt to seize it he would wrest it away from her before she could destroy or injure it.  But it was a hopeful fact that the rifle was useless without its shells!

To procure these, however, presented an unsolvable problem.  Any way she turned she found a barrier Ben kept them in his shell belt, and he wore the belt about his waist, waking or sleeping.  Only to procure it, run like a deer and hurl it into the rapids of the Yuga,—­and her problem would be absolutely solved.  Ben would be obliged to leave the cave home at once and return with her to the Yuga cabins, utilizing the few stores they had left for the journey—­simply because to stay, unarmed, would mean to die of starvation.  Indeed the few remaining supplies would not more than last them through now, traveling early and late, so if the venture were to be attempted at all it must be at once.  On the other hand his rifle and shells would enable the two of them to remain in the cavern indefinitely on a diet of meat alone.

As she worked about the cavern she brooded over the plan; but at first she could conceive of no possible way to procure the shells.  If the chance came, however, she wanted to be ready.  She planned all other details of the venture; the shortest route to the nearest rapids of the river where she might dispose of the deadly cylinders of brass.  It became necessary, also, to consider the lesser weapon for the plain reason that it might defeat her in the moment of her success.