Anne looked at King. "He doesn't know what's happened to him," she said.
"I've got the team waiting for you down the trail a little," King replied. "You'll have to get up here and ride."
Without murmuring he allowed himself to be lifted into the saddle. King, with Anne walking beside him, helped him to keep his seat, and together the three went back the way King had just come.
Only twice did Keith McBain speak a word along the way. Once he addressed Anne. "You're a good girl, Anne," he said.
A little later he leaned and touched King's shoulder. "My boy," he said, nodding his head towards Anne, "she got me out of this."
And in the meantime Anne was recounting for King the circumstances that had led her to bring Keith McBain away from town.
"There's something crooked about it," she told King. "That scrub Rickard came to town the same day. He's been hangin' round ever since—keepin' Old Silent under his eye. But the old fellow seemed to catch on that he was not goin' to have his little time all alone, and he came to me last night and says, 'Anne, I want to go back in the morning. No matter what happens,' he said, 'no matter what I say about it, take me back, will you? Promise that!' I promised and he took my hand. Then he went out. Late last night Mike Cheney and Rickard brought him in and put him to bed. When I went to wake him this morning I couldn't get him to answer. I opened the door and he was lyin'—dead to the world. I didn't say anything to the house. I just worked him out of it myself and when he came back a little I went out and got the team. Old Hurley came and helped me till we got started away. Hurley didn't like the idea, but I told him what he'd told me the night before, and he didn't say anything against it. We slipped out without anyone knowin' about it and was gettin' on great until we come to high water back there under the hill where you found us. The team had been skittish all the way, but the high water put them up in the air, and I just couldn't hold 'em and look after the old man too. It might 'a' been all right at that, but we hit something in the road and he rolled out. I did everything I could, but the team was runnin' their fool heads off and I couldn't stop 'em. So I got over the seat and dropped off behind and let them go. Then I went back and found him lyin' beside the trail. I thought he was dead, for, honest to God, he looked it. But I rolled him over and got him lyin' out flat and was workin' over him when I heard you comin'. That's all there is to it."
It had already begun to grow dusk when they came to the White Pine crossing. Leaving Keith McBain in Anne's care for the time being, King busied himself with preparations for getting to the other side. Though he had been gone only a little more than an hour he was gratified to find that the water had receded considerably—as is the way with mountain streams where the source is only a few miles off—and the surface of the bridge was almost clear.
Quickly hitching the team to the buckboard, King gave the reins to Anne and told her to get up on the seat. Then, helping Keith McBain to dismount, he led him to a place where he could sit down and wait. Mounting his own horse, he took hold of a short tethering rope fastened to the bit of one of McBain's team, and led the way with emphatic warnings to the girl to hang on. The passage was not a difficult one for King, although it had now grown dusk. His horse managed to keep his feet in the current, though once or twice he seemed to have all he could do. For Anne the crossing must have been almost nerve-shattering—but she never spoke a word until they were safely across. Then she got down from the seat and stepped up to where King was tethering the team. She looked at her dripping clothes and then at the stream rushing past in the thickening darkness.
"Are you goin' back there again?" she asked.