"Nothing. And you—Donald?"
In the darkness, Joanne went to the old man, and her hand found one of his, and clasped it tightly; and she found that Donald MacDonald's big hand was trembling in a strange and curious way, and she could feel him quivering.
"You found Jane?" she whispered.
"Yes, I found her, little Joanne."
She did not let go of his hand until they entered the open space which Aldous had made in the spruce. Then she remembered what Aldous had said to her earlier in the day, and cheerfully she lighted the two candles they had set out, and forced Aldous down first upon the ground, and then MacDonald, and began to help them to beans and meat and bannock, while all the time her heart was crying out to know about the cavern—and Jane. The candleglow told her a great deal, for in it Donald MacDonald's face was very calm, and filled with a great peace, despite the trembling she had felt. Her woman's sympathy told her that his heart was too full on this night for speech, and when he ate but little she did not urge him to eat more; and when he rose and went silently and alone out into the darkness she held Aldous back; and when, still a little later, she went into her nest for the night, she whispered softly to him:
"I know that he found Jane as he wanted to find her, and he is happy. I think he has gone out there alone—to cry." And for a time after that, as he sat in the gloom, John Aldous knew that Joanne was sobbing like a little child in the spruce and cedar shelter he had built for her.
CHAPTER XXVIII
If MacDonald slept at all that night Aldous did not know it. The old mountaineer watched until a little after twelve in the deep shadow of a rock between the two camps.