There was something in her straightforward gaze that forced Dexter to believe she told the truth—that she had not met Stark or his companions. Yet he knew equally well that she had not blundered by accident upon that remote spot where the tree had fallen upon him. She had learned of his plight somehow; but he could not guess by what strange, occult medium the knowledge had reached her. As he studied her inscrutable features, he recalled the mystifying events of the previous fall: how news had traveled unaccountably through the forest silences, how voices seemed to carry between distant places, without any visible means of transmission. As he had been hopelessly puzzled before, so now he found no answer or explanation; and with the fever throbbing in his brain, he scarcely felt capable of thinking.
Alison gave back his glance with fearless, unyielding eyes, and he knew how useless it was to question her. He gave it up for the present, and, beckoning with a curt nod, he turned in silence and started forward again on the trail.
CHAPTER XXVI
MAN AND WOMAN
A voyageur in the best physical trim would have found it fatiguing to travel along the rough mountain slopes, breaking a path over fallen snow crust, wallowing through deep, soggy drifts. Before he had traveled a mile of his journey, Dexter found himself growing short of breath, slipping and floundering more than a trained mountaineer should. It took determination to push onward, but he kept going as long as he could; until his head was reeling and his legs tottered under him. The heavy pounding of his heart warned him at last, and he had sense enough to quit. He was anxious to reach Devreaux, but he must take his time about it.
It was an hour or more before sundown when he finally admitted that he could go no farther. They made camp in the lee of a warm rock ledge, the corporal helping to gather sticks to build the night fire. The remains of the rabbit stew were heated, and as soon as he had eaten his supper, Dexter rolled up in a blanket and almost instantly dropped off into profound slumber. He slept all night like a dead man, and did not awaken until the morning sun flooded upon him over the eastern mountain peaks.
Every bone and muscle of his body was an aching torment, but he forced himself to his feet, and as soon as possible he and Alison resumed their northward journey. They moved by easy stages up the valley that day, stopping at intervals for rest, and then pushing on again a little farther. And some time during mid-afternoon they crossed the flank of a forested hillslope, and caught a distant view of Saddle Mountain, looming in pale white outline against the limpid sky.
Complete exhaustion forced the corporal to call a halt at a point five or six miles south of the double peaks, but he went to sleep that evening with the assurance that he would be able to reach his destination by noon of the following day.
Alison, for some reason, was in a subdued and quiet mood when they set forth next morning to finish the last stage of their journey. She answered the corporal's occasional remarks in the barest monosyllables, but she kept closer at his side than usual; and frequently, when she thought he was not looking, she would glance stealthily towards him, from under veiling lashes, as though she had grown curious to know what thoughts lurked behind the stern immobility of his weather-bronzed face. Several times Dexter caught her unawares, before she could turn her eyes away, and he gathered, from her troubled expression, that there was something on her mind that needed saying. It was not until they were climbing the last slope across the base of Saddle Mountain, however, that she finally broke the silence that had lasted between them all that morning.
"I wonder what you think of me?" she blurted out unexpectedly.