"Ben!" she called again. Then with increasing volume. "Ben!"
But no echo returned. The darkness swallowed the sound at once.
The night was chill: she longed for the comfort of the fire. The actual labor of building it might take her mind from her fears for a while at least; and its warm glow might dispel the growing cold of fear and loneliness in her breast. Besides, it might be a beacon light for Ben. She turned at once to the pile of kindling Ben had prepared.
But before she could build a really satisfactory fire, one that would endure the rain, she must cut fuel from some of the logs Ben had hewn down and dragged to the cave. She lighted a short piece of pitchy wood, intending to locate the heavy camp axe. Then, putting on her heavy coat—the same garment of lustrous fur which Ben had sent her back for the day of her abduction—she ventured into the storm.
The rain splashed in vain at her torch. The pitch burned with a fierce flame. But her eyes sought in vain for the axe.
This was a strange thing: Ben always left it leaning against one of the chunks of spruce. Presently she halted, startled, gazing into the black depths of the forest.
Ben had taken it; he had plainly gone forth after fuel. Trees stood all about the little glade: he couldn't have gone far. The inference was obvious: whatever disaster had befallen him must have occurred within a few hundred yards of the cave.
Holding her torch high she went to the edge of the glade and again called into the gloom. There was no repression in her voice now. She called as loudly as she could. She started to push on into the fringe of timber.
But at once she paused, holding hard on her self-control. It was folly to make a blind search. To penetrate the dark mystery of the forest with only this little light—already flickering out—would probably result in becoming lost herself. Such a course would not help Ben's cause. Evidently he was lying within a few hundred feet of her, unconscious—perhaps dead—or he would have replied to her call.
Dead! The thought sped an icy current throughout the hydraulic system of her veins.