Lying there under the shelter of a rock shelf that jutted out from the cave wall, he would watch the whirling snow sift down through the opening in the cave’s roof and pack deeper the drift upon that side.  Twice he had moved his pile of supplies, and once he had moved his wood; and after that he did not much care whether they were buried or not.

Lying there with only his face and one hand out from under the covers so that he might smoke, Jack had time to do a great deal of thinking, though he tried not to think, since thinking seemed so profitless.  He would watch the snow and listen to the wind whistling in the roof, and try to let them fill his mind.  Sometimes he wondered how any one save an idiot could ever have contemplated passing a winter apart from his kind, in a cave on a mountain-top.  Holed up with the bears, he reminded himself bitterly.  And yet he had planned it eagerly with Marion and had looked forward to it as an adventure—­a lark with a few picturesque hardships thrown in to give snap to the thing.  Well, he had the hardships, all right enough, and the snap, but he could not see anything picturesque or adventurous about it.

He could have given it up, of course.  His two legs would have carried him down to the valley in a matter of three hours or so, even with the snow hampering his progress.  He could, for instance, leave his cave in the afternoon of any day, and reach Marston in plenty of time for either of the two evening trains.  He could take the “up” train, whose headlight tempted him every evening when he went out to watch for it wistfully, and land in Salt Lake the next night; or he could take the “down” train a little later, and be in San Francisco the next morning.  Then, it would be strange if he could not find a boat ready to leave port for some far-off, safe place.  He could do that any day.  He had money enough in his pocket to carry him out of the country if he were willing to forego the luxuries that come dear in travel—­and he thought he could, with all this practice!

He played with the idea.  He pictured himself taking the down train, and the next day shipping out of San Francisco on a sailing vessel bound for Japan or Panama or Seattle—­it did not greatly matter which.  He would have to make sure first that the boat was not equipped with wireless, so he supposed he must choose a small sailing vessel, or perhaps a tramp steamer.  At other times he pictured himself landing in Salt Lake and hiking out from there to find work on some ranch.  Who would ever identify him there as Jack Corey?

He dreamed those things over his cigarettes, smoked parsimoniously through a cheap holder until the stub was no longer than one of Marion’s fingernails that Jack loved to look at because they were always so daintily manicured.  He dreamed, but he could not bring himself to the point of making one of his dreams come true.  He could not, because of Marion.  She had helped him to plan this retreat, she had helped