"Oh, let us make a fire now! I love to make a fire in the woods. You could get plenty of dry cones and twigs and it wouldn't take fifteen minutes; then, if they were once dry, I could walk, you know."
"Your fifteen minutes would be an hour at least, and that is an hour of daylight very precious to us just now. Besides, I am afraid I doubt your walking powers."
"Yes," answered Garda, with frankness; "I hate to walk."
"Yet you can run," he suggested, referring to her escapade on Patricio beach.
Garda took up this memory, and was merry over it for some time. Then, growing weary again, she told him despotically that he must stop. "I cannot bear this position and jolting a moment longer, with my feet fettered in this way," she said, vehemently. "You couldn't either."
He turned; though she was smiling, he saw that she had grown pale. "I shall have to humor you. But I give you fifteen minutes only." He lifted her down, and mounting the horse, rode off to a distance, first in one direction, then in another, hoping to discover some one whom he could send in to Gracias for a carriage or wagon. But the wide barren, growing rapidly dusky, remained empty and still; there was no moving thing in sight.
When he came back he found that Garda had put on her stockings and slippers again, wet as they were. She was trying to walk; but the soft sand of the track clung to each soaked shoe so that she lifted, as she said, a mountain every time she took a step. In spite of this, "I'm going on," she announced.
"You must, now that you have put on those wet things again; it's the only way to keep from taking cold."
So they started, Garda leaning on his arm, while he held the bridle with his other hand. "I might ride, and carry you behind me," he suggested. "Like Lochinvar."
"Who's Lochinvar? See; there's somebody!"