"So do we."
"All ready?"
"All ready."
He shook our hands.
"So long."
"So long."
We gave him the Scouts' salute, and out we went. We shook hands with the Red Foxes; they saluted us, and we saluted them. We crossed the yard for the trail; and when we looked back, the two women waved at us. We waved back. And now we were carrying the message again, with only twenty-one miles to go.
The trail was up grade, following beside the creek, and we knew that we must allow at least eight hours for those twenty-one miles. It was not to be a nice day, either. Mists were floating around among the hills, which was a pretty certain sign of rain.
We hiked on. I had the message, hanging inside my shirt. It felt good. I suspected that Fitz ought to be the one to carry it; he was my superior. But he didn't ask for it, and I tried to believe that my carrying it made no difference to him. I was thinking about offering it to him, but I didn't. He had his camera, and the flag wrapped about his waist like a sash. We'd left Sally and our other stuff at the ranch, and were traveling light for this last spurt.
It was a wagon trail right down the valley, and we could travel fast. The sun grew hotter, and a hole in my boot-sole began to raise a blister on my foot. Those fourteen days of steady trailing had been hard on leather, and on clothes, too.