After her went Mike, scuttling away from his cabin with his rifle swinging from his right hand, his left fumbling the buttons on his coat.

At the fence corner Marion hesitated, standing with her back to the wind, the snow driving past her with that faint hiss of clashing particles which is the voice of a sleeting blizzard.  She could take the old, abandoned road which led up over the ridge topped by Taylor Rock, and she would find the walking easier, perhaps.  But the road followed the line of least resistance through the hills, and that line was by no means straight.  Jack would probably be in the cave, out of the storm; she had no hope of meeting him over on the slope on such a day.  Still, he might start down the mountain, and at any rate it would be the shortest way up there.  She turned down along the fence, following the trail as she had done before, with Mike coming after her as though he was stalking game:  warily, swiftly, his face set and eager, his eyes shining with the hunting lust.

Up the hill she went, bracing herself against the wind where it swept through open spaces, shivering with the cold of it, fearful of the great roaring overhead where the pinetops swayed drunkenly with clashing branches:  Dead limbs broke and came crashing down, bringing showers of snow and bark and broken twigs and stripped needles from the resisting branches in their path.  She was afraid, so she went as fast as she could, consoling her fear with the shrewd thought that the storm would serve to hold back the sheriff and give Jack time to get away somewhere.  No one would dream of his traveling on such a day as this, she kept telling herself over and over.  It was getting worse instead of better; the snow was coming thicker and the sleet was lessening.  It was going to be quite a climb to the cave; the wind must be simply terrible up there, but she could see now that Jack would never expect her out in such weather, and so he would stay close to the camp fire.

At the top of the hill the wind swooped upon her and flung clouds of snow into her face so that she was half blinded.  She turned her back upon it, blinked rapidly until her vision cleared again, and stood there panting, tempted to turn back.  No one would be crazy enough to venture out today.  They would wait until the storm cleared.

She looked back down the trail she had followed.  Wherever the wind had a clean sweep her tracks were filling already with snow.  If she did not wait, and if Jack got away now, they couldn’t track him at all.  She really owed him that much of a chance to beat them.  She put up her muff, shielded her face from the sting of frozen snowflakes, and went on, buffeted down the steep slope where Kate had sprained her ankle, and thinking that she must be careful where she set her feet, because it would be frightful if she had such an accident herself.