He wished that Murphy would come; and in the next moment he was cursing Murphy for being half in league with the plotters, and hoping Murphy never showed his face again in the cabin; making threats, too, of what he would do if Murphy came around sneering about the spies.

With daylight came a degree of sanity, and Mike built up the fire again and cooked his breakfast.  Habit reasserted itself and he went off to his work, muttering his rambling thoughts as he shambled along the path he and Murphy had beaten in the snow.  But he carried his rifle, which he had never done before, and he stood it close beside him while he worked.  Also he kept an eye on the trail and on Toll-Gate cabin.  He would have been as hard to catch unaware that day as a weasel.

Once or twice he saw the professor pottering around near the cabin, gathering pieces of bark off fallen trees to help out their scanty supply of dry wood.  The pines still mourned and swayed to the wind, which hung in the storm quarter, and the clouds marched soddenly in the opposite direction or hung almost motionless for a space.  The professor did not come within hailing distance, and seemed wholly occupied with gathering what bark he could carry home before the storm, but Mike was not reassured, nor was he thrown off his guard.

He waited until noon, expecting to see the girl come out for more plotting.  When she did not, he went back and cooked a hot dinner, thinking that the way to get the best of spies on the government is to watch them closer than they watch you, and to be ready to follow them when they go off in the woods to plot.  So he ate as much as he could swallow, and filled his pockets with bacon and bread.  He meant to keep on their trail this time, and see just what they were up to.

Marion, however, did not venture out of the cabin.  She was very much afraid that Hank Brown was suspicious of Jack and was trying to locate Jack’s camp.  She was also afraid of Hank on her own account, and she did not want to see him ever again.  She was certain that he had tried hard to overtake her when she went running after Mike, and that she had escaped him only by being as swift-footed as he, and by having the start of him.

Then Kate could not walk at all, and with the professor busy outside, common decency kept Marion in the house.  She would like to have sent Jack a heliograph message, but she did not dare with the professor prowling around hunting dry limbs and bark.  She had no confidence in the professor’s potential kindness toward a fellow in Jack’s predicament—­the professor was too good to be trusted.  He would tell the police.

Normally she would have told Kate about Hank Brown, would have asked Kate’s advice, for Kate was practical when she forgot herself long enough to be perfectly natural.  But she and Kate were speaking only when it was absolutely necessary to speak, and discussion was therefore out of the question.  She felt penned up, miserable.  What if Hank Brown found out about Jack and set the sheriff on his trail?  He would, she believed, if he knew—­for he hated Jack because of that fight.  Jack had told her about it, keeping the cause fogged in generalities.