His hands worked as swiftly as his thoughts.  He laced up his service boots.  All the food and dishes on the table he made into a compact bundle and placed in the shoulder-pack.  He carried this and the rifle out into the hall.  Then he returned to Marette’s room.  The door was closed.  At his knock the girl’s voice told him that she was not quite ready.

He waited.  He could hear her moving about quickly in her room.  An interval of silence followed.  Another five minutes passed—­ten—­ fifteen.  He tapped at the door again.  This time it was opened.

He stared, amazed at the change in Marette.  She had stepped back from the door to let him enter, and stood full in the lamp-glow.  Her slim, beautiful body was dressed in a velvety blue corduroy; the coat was close-fitting and boyish; the skirt came only a little below her knees.  On her feet were high-topped caribou boots.  About her waist was a holster and the little black gun.  Her hair was done up and crowded under a close-fitting turban.  She was exquisitely lovely, as she stood there waiting for him, and in that loveliness Kent saw there was not one thing out of place.  The corduroy, the turban, the short skirt, and the high, laced boots were made for the wilderness.  She was not a tenderfoot.  She was a little sourdough—­clear through!  Gladness leaped into Kent’s face.  But it was not the transformation of her dress alone that amazed him.  She was changed in another way.  Her cheeks were flushed.  Her eyes glowed with a strange and wonderful radiance as she looked at him.  Her lips were red, as he had seen them that first time at Cardigan’s place.  Her pallor, her fear, her horror were gone, and in their place was the repressed excitement of one about to enter upon a strange adventure.

On the floor was a pack only half as large as Kent’s and when he picked it up, he found it of almost no weight.  He fastened it to his own pack while Marette put on her raincoat and went down the stair ahead of him.  In the hall below she was waiting, when he came down, with Kedsty’s big rubber slicker in her hands.

“You must put it on,” she said.

She shuddered slightly as she held the garment.  The color was almost gone from her cheeks, as she faced the door beyond which the dead man sat in his chair, but the marvelous glow was still in her eyes as she helped Kent with his pack and the slicker and afterward stood for an instant with her hands touching his breast and her lips as if about to speak something which she held back.

A few steps beyond them they heard the storm.  It seemed to rush upon the bungalow in a new fury, beating at the door, crashing over their heads in thunder, daring them to come out.  Kent reached up and turned out the hall light.