She pulled herself straight. "It isn't the loss of the milk, Mose; you should understand that. It's the principle. He can't take anything of mine. It's wrong. Besides, if I let this go, unnoticed, we might wake up any morning to find greater things missing. We might even find Colonel gone."
She lifted her head higher and moved forward with new resolve. Mose kept pace with her, and presently they halted, screened by a mesh of young hemlock boughs, and looked out into the boulder-strewn open behind the tower.
Smith was there. He was removing from the fire a trout which he had cooked on a long sharpened stick. He worked with a noiseless, gliding motion, and even when he seated himself on the flat rock, which became at once both chair and table, and fell hurriedly to eating his breakfast, he kept up a ceaseless pantomime; beating the earth softly with his foot, starting up, subsiding, shivering, looking behind him, listening, and like an animal long hunted, again starting.
Two horses stood near him accoutered for the trail. One, his own, brought from Laramie's meadow, where at intervals it was pastured, carried saddle-bags and a snug blanket roll at the crupper; the other was an indifferent pack-animal laden with camp supplies.
"He ees tek de long trail, for sure," whispered Mose. "Monjee, how ees it he ees leave Colonel?"
"If those are Mr. Stratton's things he's got to take them back," she said. "Come, we must make him."
Mose shook his head. "We doan' be able."
"We must." Then she squared her shoulders and walked forward with a clear "Good-morning."
Instantly the man was on his feet, and grasping the rifle which stood at hand, against the tower wall, he dropped to his knee behind the improvised table. The gun rested across the rock and he took sight carefully.
The girl came on into the open. "Don't be afraid of me," she said and steadied her voice, "I only want to talk to you."