"I want him to come," her voice suddenly spoke aloud. It rang strangely in the gloomy cave. "I want him to come back to me."
She felt no impulse for the words. They seemed to speak themselves. Presently she sat erect, her heart leaping with inexpressible relief, at the sound of a heavy tread at the edge of the glade.
The steps came nearer, and then paused. She sprang to her feet and went to the mouth of the cave. A silence that lived between the beating rain and the complaining wind settled down about her. Her eyes could not pierce the darkness.
"Is that you, Ben?" she called.
She strained into the silence for his reply. The cold drops splashed into her face.
"Ben?" she called again. "Is that you?"
Then something leaped with an explosive sound, and running feet splashed in the wet grass in flight. The little spruce trees at the edge of the glade whipped and rustled as a heavy body crashed through. The steps had been only those of some forest beast—a caribou, perhaps, or a moose—come to mock her despair.
She remembered that Ben had been wishing for just such a visitation these past few days; of course in the daylight hours when he could see to shoot. Their meat supply was almost gone.
She did not go to her cot again. She stood peering into the gloom. All further effort to repel her fears came to nothing. The storm was already of two hours' duration, and Ben would have certainly returned to the cave unless disaster had befallen him. Was he lost somewhere in the intertwining trails, seeking shelter in a heavy thicket until the dawn should show him his way? There were so many pitfalls for the unsuspecting in these trackless wilds.
Yet she could be of no aid to him. The dark woods stretched interminably; she would not even know which way to start. It would just mean to be lost herself, should she attempt to seek him. The trails that wound through the glades and over the ridges had no end.