"Give me the horse," she commanded. "I'm going to help Bruce."
"You can have it," Elmira answered in an unfamiliar voice. "It's the horse that—that Dave Turner rode here—and he won't want him any more."
Linda took the rein, passed it over the horse's head, and started to swing into the saddle. Then she turned with a gasp as the woman slipped something into her hand.
Linda looked down and saw it was the hilt of the knife that Elmira had carried with her when the two women had gone with Dave into the woods. The blade glittered; but Linda was afraid to look at it closely. "You might need that, too," the old woman said. "It may be wet—I can't remember. But take it, anyway."
Linda hardly heard. She thrust the blade into the leather of the saddle, then swung on her horse. Once more she sought Simon's figure. Far away she saw it, just as it vanished into the heavy timber on top of the hill.
She rode swiftly until she began to fear that he might hear the hoof beat of her mount; then she drew up to a walk. And when she had crested the hill and had followed down its long slope into the glen, the moon went under the clouds for the first time.
She lost sight of Simon at once. Seemingly her effort to save Bruce had come to nothing, after all.
But she didn't turn back. There were light patches in the sky, and the moon might shine forth again.
She followed down the trail toward the cleared lands that the Turners cultivated. She went to their very edge. It was a rather high point, so she waited here for the moon to emerge again. Never, it seemed to her, had it moved so slowly. But all at once its light flowed forth over the land.
Her eyes searched the distant spaces, but she could catch no glimpse of Simon between the trees. Evidently he no longer walked in the direction of the house. Then she looked out over the tilled lands.