This was their new pact. To stand firm and strong and unflinching, and never to yield as long as an ounce of strength remained. As if to seal it, her arms crept about his neck and her soft lips pressed his.
XXVII
Toward the end of the afternoon Linda saddled the horse and rode down the trail toward Martin's store. She had considerable business to attend to. Among other things, she was going to buy thirty-thirty cartridges,—all that Martin had in stock. She had some hope of securing an extra gun or two with shells to match. The additional space in her pack was to be filled with provisions.
For she was faced with the unpleasant fact that her larder was nearly empty. The jerked venison was almost gone; only a little flour and a few canned things remained. She had space for only small supplies on the horse's back, and there would be no luxuries among them.—Their fare had been plain up to this time; but from now on it was to consist of only such things as were absolutely necessary to sustain life.
She rode unarmed. Without informing him of the fact, the rifle had been left for Bruce. She did not expect for herself a rifle shot from ambush—for the simple reason that Simon had bidden otherwise—and Bruce might be attacked at any moment.
She was dreaming dreams, that day. The talk with Bruce had given her fresh heart, and as she rode down the sunlit trail the future opened up entrancing vistas to her. Perhaps they yet could conquer, and that would mean reëstablishment on the far-flung lands of her father. Matthew Folger had possessed a fertile farm also, and its green pastures might still be utilized. It suddenly occurred to her that it would be of interest to turn off the main trail, take a little dim path up the ridge that she had discovered years before, and look over these lands. The hour was early; besides, Bruce would find her report of the greatest interest.
She jogged slowly along in the Western fashion,—which means something quite different from army fashion or sportsman fashion. Western riders do not post. Riding is not exercise to them; it is rest. They hang limp in the saddle, and all jar is taken up, as if by a spring, somewhere in the region of the floating ribs that only a physician can correctly designate. They never sit firm, these Western riders, and as a rule their riding is not a particularly graceful thing to watch. But they do not care greatly about grace as long as they may encompass their fifty miles a day and still be fresh enough for a country dance at night. There are many other differences in Western and Eastern riding, one of them being the way in which the horse is mounted. Another difference is the riding habit. Linda had no trim riding trousers, with tall glossy boots, red coat, and stock. It was rather doubtful whether she knew such things existed. She did, however, wear a trim riding skirt of khaki and a middie blouse washed spotlessly clean by her own hands; and no one would have missed the other things. It is an indisputable fact that she made a rather alluring picture—eyes bright and hair dark and strong arms bare to the elbow—as she came riding down the pine-needle trail.
She came to the opening of the dimmer trail and turned down it. She did not jog so easily now. The descent was more steep. She entered a still glen, and the color in her cheeks and the soft brown of her arms blended well with the new tints of the autumn leaves. Then she turned up a long ridge.
The 'trail led through an old burn—a bleak, eerie place where the fire had swept down the forest, leaving only strange, black palings here and there—and she stopped in the middle of it to look down. The mountain world was laid out below her as clearly as in a relief map. Her eyes lighted as its beauty and its fearsomeness went home to her, and her keen eyes slowly swept over the surrounding hill tops. Then for a long moment she sat very still in the saddle.