"It weren't so far as I thought it was, Johnny!" he cried. "Oh, it must ha' been a turrible night—a turrible night when Jane an' I come this way! It took us twenty hours, Johnny!"
"We are near the cavern?" breathed Joanne.
"It ain't more'n half a mile farther on, I guess. But we'll camp here. We're pretty well hid. They can't find us. An' from that summit up there we can keep watch in both valleys."
Knowing the thoughts that were in MacDonald's mind, and how full his heart was with a great desire, Aldous went to him when they had dismounted.
"You go on alone if there is time to-night, Mac," he said, knowing that the other would understand him. "I will make camp."
"There ain't no one in the valley," mused the old man, a little doubtfully at first. "It would be safe—quite safe, Johnny."
"Yes, it will be safe."
"And I will stand guard while John is working," said Joanne, who had come to them. "No one can approach us without being seen."
For another moment MacDonald hesitated. Then he said:
"Do you see that break over there across the plain? It's the open to a gorge. Johnny, it do seem unreasonable—it do seem as though I must ha' been dreamin'—when I think that it took us twenty hours! But the snow was to my waist in this plain, an' it was slow work—turrible slow work! I think the cavern—ain't on'y a little way up that gorge."