“Trimmings from black oaks our outfit cut for fence posts,” she enlightened him. She held a long pole, and now thrust it under the heap. “I’ll pry up the whole pile with this,” she said. “You cache the saddles way under, then I’ll let the pile drop back over them.”
Soon they were away again, with packs on their backs and the rifle, in its scabbard, swinging from The Falcon’s shoulder.
It was growing light now. The eastern sky was shell pink, and clouds were revealed.
“Those look like wind clouds,” said the girl reflectively. “A big blow is about due. You’ve never been in this country when the wind blows. Say, you’ll remember it when it does! I hope one is on the way. I could use a windstorm just now.”
They left little or no trail on the soft, slippery carpet of pine needles. Through an unbroken forest Manzanita led The Falcon, seeming to guide herself by instinct, since to the latter one tree looked as straight and unindividual as thousands of others through which they had passed.
Then they began to ascend again, and the land grew broken and rocky, with trees scattered about. Soon, except for a sentinel pine here and there on a rugged hillside, there were no trees; the ground was covered by rocks and scattering chaparral. The chaparral, about twelve feet in height and composed of prickly buckthorn and southern manzanita, grew continually denser, till at last they were confronted by a solid wall of it seemingly impregnable.
“Now, if our Bible student, Halfaman Daisy, were here,” said the girl, “the harrowing experience of old Nebuchadnezzar probably would be recalled to his mind. For, like Nebuchadnezzar, we’ve got to crawl now.”
The Falcon watched with interest while she readjusted her improvised pack. She lowered it from between her shoulder blades to the small of her back, then lay down flat on her face.
“‘Follow your leader!’” she quoted from the old game and wriggled into the chaparral and disappeared.
Falcon the Flunky followed her example.