“I don’t think so. I—I was very angry when I said what I did. I—I didn’t mean it; and I’m—I’m sorry.”
“I’m not. I know you don’t think it now; but you meant it then; and it was just what anyone else would have meant and said. It helped us to understand things better. That’s all. I was very much afraid you meant to ride off alone, and then ... well, I don’t know about then.”
“I wish I had known your thoughts,” she said, with a sort of half mischievous regret.
“You mean you would have outplayed me?”
She nodded and smiled, “Yes.”
“Well, please don’t try it again. It might be very dangerous play.”
“I won’t, I promise you,” she said readily, understanding from my serious tone that I was very much in earnest. “When you use that tone I have no rebellion left in me. I am like Chris, I suppose, in that.”
Chris himself interrupted us then by growling, and looking round I saw Karasch coming from the tent.
“Chris hates Karasch,” I told her. “The man struck him once savagely, and I had all my work to keep the dog from his throat. He never forgets. You can see now that every hair on his neck is bristling with anger; and Karasch won’t come near him.”
“He is a fierce looking man,” she said.