But the dauntless Mrs. Singleton Corey could not for long permit her spirit to be subdued, especially since she had not yet found Jack.

“Well, can you get word to my son that I am here and should like to see him?” she asked, as soon as the chill had left her a little.  “This is a terrible storm,” she added politely.

Even when Kate had explained how impossible it was to get word to any one just then, Mrs. Singleton Corey refused to yield one bit of her composure to the anxiety that filled her.  She simply sat and looked at poor Kate like the chairman of a ways-and-means committee who is waiting to hear all the reports.

“You think, then, that the young woman went to meet Jack?”

“I know she did.  She was furious because I had not concealed the fact of his being here, but I felt that I owed it—­”

“Yes, to be sure.  And where would she be most likely to meet him?  Do you know?”

“I know where she did meet him,” Kate retorted with an edge to her voice.  “She couldn’t have gotten lost, though, if she had gone there.  It is close to the road you traveled.  Doug—­Professor Harrison has led a party up where Marion said Jack had his cave.  If they are there, we shall know it as soon as they come back.”

“Yes, certainly.  And if they are not there?” Mrs. Singleton Corey held her voice firm though the heart within her trembled at the terrible possibility.

“Well—­she didn’t take the train, we know that positively.  She must be up there with Jack!”

Mrs. Singleton Corey knew very well that Kate was merely propping her hope with the statement, but she was glad enough to accept the prop for her own hopes.  So they talked desultorily and with that arms-length amiability which is the small currency of polite conversation between two strange women, and Mrs. Singleton Corey laid aside her dignity with her fur-lined coat, and made tea for them—­since Kate could not walk.

Late in the afternoon men began to straggle into the cabin, fagged and with no news of Marion.  The professor was brought back so exhausted that he could not walk without assistance, and talked incoherently of being shot at, up near the peak, and of being unable to reach Taylor Rock on account of the furious wind and the deep drifts.

Hank Brown declared that he could make it in the morning, and one or two others volunteered to go with him.  It began to seem more and more likely that Marion was up there and compelled by the storm to stay, in whatever poor refuge Jack might have.  It seemed useless to make any further attempt at hiding Jack’s identity and whereabouts, although Mrs. Singleton Corey, with a warning glance at Kate and a few carefully constructed sentences, managed to convey the impression that Jack had been hiding away from her, after a quarrel between them which had proved merely a misunderstanding.  She was vastly relieved to see that her explanation was accepted, and to know that if Quincy had ever heard of the auto-bandit affair, it had forgotten all about it long ago.