“Well, but I was afraid—­”

“Afraid of Kate?  Why, dearie!”

That is the way they talked, until they heard the professor scraping the snow off his feet on the edge of the flat doorstep.  Kate lay back then on her piled pillows, placed a finger across her closed lips and pulled her scanty hair braid down over her left shoulder.  She shut her eyes and held them so until the professor came in, when she opened them languidly.

Marion carried away the chocolate cups, her heart light.  She would not have believed that a reconciliation with Kate and the unburdening of her secret could work such a change in her feelings.  She wished fervently that she had told Kate at first.  Now they could have Jack down at the cabin sometimes, when the men were both away.  They would cook nice little dinners for him, and she could lend him all the reading matter he wanted.  She would not have to sneak it away from the cabin.  It was a great relief.  Marion was very happy that evening.

Jack was not so happy.  He was climbing slowly back to his comfortless camp, wondering whether it was worth while to keep up the struggle for sake of his freedom.  Jail could not be worse than this, he kept telling himself.  At least there would be other human beings—­he would not be alone day after day.  He would be warm and no worse off for food than here.  Only for his mother and the shame it would bring her, he would gladly make the exchange.  He was past caring, past the horror of being humiliated before his fellows.

It was hard work climbing to the cave, but that was not the reason why he had not wanted Marion to make the trip.  He did not want Marion to know that the cave was half full of snow that had blown in with the wind, and that he was compelled to dig every stick of firewood out from under a snowdrift.  Only for that pile of wood, he would have moved his camp to the other side of the peak that was more sheltered, even though it was hidden from the mountain side and the lower valleys he had learned to know so well.

But the labor of moving his camp weighed heavily against the comfort he would gain.  He did not believe that he would actually freeze here, now that he had the bearskin; stiff and unwieldy though it was, when he spread it with the fur next to his blankets it was warm—­especially since he had bent the edges under his bed all around and let the hide set that way.

Marion would have been astonished had she known how many hours out of every twenty-four Jack spent under the strong-odored hide.  Jack himself was astonished, whenever he came out of his general apathy long enough to wonder how he endured this brutish existence.  But he had to save wood, and he had to save food, and he had to kill time somehow.  So he crawled into his blankets long before dark, short as the days were, and he stayed there long after daylight.  That is why he smoked so many cigarettes, and craved so much reading.