Exhaustion soon brought her sleep. But in the middle of the night she was awakened by a storm that swept high over the ranch house, scarcely touching it in its sheltered hollow, but shrieking and wailing among the rocks and pines. She sat up in her bed to listen! Thunder Mountain! Before her eyes there rose, out of the dark of the cabin, a vision of Philip prone among the rocks of that terrible summit, struck down by the wind, or felled by a thunderbolt, drenched with rain, and perishing of cold. There came, above the howling of the wind, a deafening crash of thunder that rolled away in sullen bellowing. She buried her face among the pillows to shut out the frightful sound; and at length, when the tumult had died away to recur no more, she lay weeping softly until sleep came again to her relief. She did not wake again till morning.
"How much farther up can I go?" asked Marion at breakfast.
"You don't mean----" began Mrs. Murray in alarm.
"No," replied Marion quickly. "I don't mean the top. But can't I ride near enough to see it?"
"You c'n go to timber line safe enough," said Murray.
"Yes, I've been that far, but you mustn't think o' goin' further," added the woman, still suspicious. "I'll tell you what! Murray'll go with you."
"By no means!" Marion protested. "It isn't necessary at all. I can follow trails well enough."
"I wish you'd let Murray go with you. He'll be glad to show you----"
"No. Thank you just the same, Mrs. Murray, but----"
"And you'll not try to go past timber line?"
"Don't worry about that, please! I know I could never go where men have failed. I've heard all about Thunder Mountain, and I just want to see it, near. Besides----"
She did not finish, but turned quickly away. This sign of emotion was not hidden from Mrs. Murray, and it heightened her anxiety. Lord only knew what the girl'd try to do once she got out of their sight! But where the intellectual and argumentative Smythe had failed, what could be expected of these simple mountain folk, who for all their sturdy independence were not a little awed by the superior poise and distinction of their visitor? Moreover, Marion was at this moment entirely honest in her assurance that she intended to go no farther than timber line. If the idea that lay deep in the back of her mind had grown since its inception some hours before, it was yet formless and unrecognized; if her purpose now had her firmly gripped, she was as yet unconscious of it, obeying it subconsciously, while she told herself, as she told Mrs. Murray, that she wanted only to satisfy her aching heart by doing merely all that a girl could do. To make sure that Philip had not already failed--that he had not been thrown back from the very edge of the fatal crest--that he did not now lie somewhere on the last steep slope above timber line, where she might see and save him: this was the utmost of her design in setting out that morning against the protests of her hosts.