Snow was still falling, but the gale from the
north was sweeping it into drifts, obliterating his tracks almost
as soon as they were made.
Straight ahead lay the towering, invisible rock, a quarter of a
mile away. He descended the ridge slope, swung tirelessly across
the swales and mounds in the little valley, and then bent his back
to the climb up the steep incline to Quill's Window. Picking his
way through a fringe of trees, he came to the tortuous path that
led to the crest of the great rock. Panting, dogged, straining every
ounce of his prodigious strength, he struggled upward, afraid to
stop for rest, afraid to lower his burden. The sides and the flat
summit of the rock were full of treacherous fissures, but he knew
them well. He had climbed the sides of Quill's Window scores of
times as a boy, to sit at the top and gaze off over the small world
below, there to dream of the great world outside, and of love,
adventure, travel. Many a night, after the death of his beloved
Alix, he had gone up there to mourn alone, to be nearer to the
heaven which she had entered, to be closer to her. He knew well of
the narrow fissure at the top,--six feet deep and the length of a
grave! Filled only with the leaves of long dead years!
He lowered his burden to the bare surface of the rock. The wind
had swept it clean. Under the protecting screen of his overcoat
he struck a match and lighted the lantern.
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