“By no means!” Marion protested. “It isn’t necessary at all. I can follow trails well enough.”
“I wish you’d let Murray go with you. He’ll be glad to show you–––”
“No. Thank you just the same, Mrs. Murray, but–––”
“And you’ll not try to go past timber line?”
“Don’t worry about that, please! I know I could never go where men have failed. I’ve heard all about Thunder Mountain, and I just want to see it, near. Besides–––”
She did not finish, but turned quickly away. This sign of emotion was not hidden from Mrs. Murray, and it heightened her anxiety. Lord only knew what the girl’d try to do once she got out of their sight! But where the intellectual and argumentative Smythe had failed, what could be expected of these simple mountain folk, who for all their sturdy independence were not a little awed by the superior poise and distinction of their visitor? Moreover, Marion was at this moment entirely honest in her assurance that she intended to go no farther than timber line. If the idea that lay deep in the back of her mind had grown since its inception some hours before, it was yet formless and unrecognized; if her purpose now had her firmly gripped, she was as yet unconscious of it, obeying it subconsciously, while she told herself, as she told Mrs. Murray, that she wanted only to satisfy her aching heart by doing merely all that a girl could do. To 221 make sure that Philip had not already failed––that he had not been thrown back from the very edge of the fatal crest––that he did not now lie somewhere on the last steep slope above timber line, where she might see and save him: this was the utmost of her design in setting out that morning against the protests of her hosts.
Yielding at last, where she could avail no more, the ranchwife fixed up a simple luncheon of bread and butter and jam, which she tied in a little package at Marion’s saddlebow. And then, with a final word of warning that she must stop at timber line, an’ be back at the house ’fore dark, or she, Mrs. Murray, would be wild, and he, Murray, would have to go searching for her, the good woman let her go, and waved a fat farewell to her until Marion was out of sight among the trees.
Once more the forest enfolded her. Though the wagon road ended at Murray’s, the trail was still for some distance plainly marked, and offered few difficulties. Even when it began to be less distinct she was not alarmed. Smythe had told her, and Murray had confirmed his description, that Thunder Mountain was not formidable as far as the foot of the final scarp. Seth had taught her something of the lore of trails, and she was confident that she would be able to find her way even if the underfoot marks should fail. There would be blazes on trees, and broken limbs and twigs, and many subtle signs that she now sought to marshal in her mind against a possible perplexity. With eyes alert, she rode slowly and resolutely on, ever higher and higher, hour after hour, most of the time through 222 dense woods, but now and then across a rocky slope, or down into a shallow gulch, and out again. By imperceptible degrees the trail grew fainter; and once it failed her utterly, in a small open space in the woods.
For a moment she was on the very point of panic; the forest seemed to be closing in on her with sudden malignity; and the terror of Thunder Mountain held her in its cold grip. But desperation called up her courage. She walked Tuesday in an ever-widening circle around the spot where she had lost the trail, with her heart almost still, and her eyes straining at every tree as it came within her vision. Where? Where? Would there be no more blazes, no more broken limbs, no more prints of hoofs on the mossy earth? Had she left the trail farther back than she had thought? And would she wander over all the vast bosom of the mountain until she fell from the saddle, and knew no more?
It was a real peril, and one that might have had a tragic termination as easily as a happy one,––more easily, indeed, if she had lost her head. But something strong within her kept her senses keen; and suddenly she broke out in a cry of joy and triumph that went echoing down the forest aisles. There, on a patriarchal pine, though almost obliterated by time and weather, was the blaze in the bark that told her the trail ran at the base of that solid trunk. She halted Tuesday there––and faced a new difficulty: in her many circlings she had lost the general direction in which she had been riding. The trail was under her horse’s hoofs; but which way should she go? There appeared to be no ascent the one way or the other, and no slope on either side.