Mark surveyed the wide valley. He had known from studying the maps that it was here, but he hadn't realized how beautiful it would be. There was a stream, and on either side of it the land rose enough not to be in danger of flooding, but not so steeply that it would be difficult to get water. This was the fringe of the national forest; some of the trees were the giants they had been seeing for days now, others were younger, and would make the logs they would need for their buildings. There was level ground for their crops, grazing ground for the livestock. He sighed, and when he faced his followers he was smiling broadly.

That afternoon and the following day he started them building lean-tos for temporary shelter; he laid out the corners of the buildings he ordered them to erect, tagged the trees they were to cut and use for the buildings and their campfires, paced off the fields they were to clear, and then, content they had enough to keep them busy until he returned, he told them he was leaving and would return in a few days.

"But where are you going?" one of them asked, glancing about now as if questioning for the first time what they were doing.

"It's a test, isn't it?" another asked, smiling.

"Yes," Mark said soberly. "You could call it a test. In survival. Are there any questions about any of my instructions?" There were none. "I'll return with a surprise for you," he said, and they were content.

He trotted effortlessly through the forest toward the river, and then he followed the river north until he reached the canoe he had hidden in the undergrowth weeks before. In all, it took him four days to return to the valley. He had been gone over two weeks, and he was afraid it might have been too long.

He approached from the hillside above the valley and lay down in some bushes to watch and wait for darkness. Late in the afternoon the paddle wheel came into view, and when it docked people swarmed out and lined up shoulder to shoulder to unload the boat, passing the salvage from one to the next, onto the shore, and into the boathouse. When lights came on, Mark moved. He started down to the old house, where he had hidden the drugs. Two-thirds of the way down he paused and dropped to his knees. To his right, a hundred yards away, was the cave entrance; the ground had been trampled, the limestone slabs had been covered with dirt. They had found his entrance and sealed it off.