"Arise, Miss Sleeping Beauty!" he said boyishly. "Breakfast's ready."
He went back to the fire. Hazel sat up, patting her tousled hair into some semblance of order. Off in the east a reddish streak spread skyward into somber gray. In the west, black night gave ground slowly.
"Well, it's another day," she whispered, as she had whispered to herself once before. "I wonder if there will ever be any more like it?"
CHAPTER VIII
IN DEEP WATER
The dawn thrust aside night's somber curtains while they ate, revealing a sky overcast with slaty clouds. What with her wanderings of the night before and the journey through the dark with Roaring Bill, she had absolutely no idea of either direction or locality. The infolding timber shut off the outlook. Forest-clad heights upreared here and there, but no landmark that she could place and use for a guide. She could not guess whether Cariboo Meadows was a mile distant, or ten, nor in what direction it might lie. If she had not done so before, she now understood how much she had to depend on Roaring Bill Wagstaff.
"Do you suppose I can get home in time to open school?" she inquired anxiously.
Roaring Bill smiled. "I don't know," he answered. "It all depends."
Upon what it depended he did not specify, but busied himself packing up. In half an hour or less they were ready to start. Bill spent a few minutes longer shortening the stirrups, then signified that she should mount. He seemed more thoughtful, less inclined to speech.