There was a time when Belle would have spoken first, but there had been a subtle, yet very real, change in their relationship. Jim was a child three years before, dependent almost entirely on her; now she was less his leader than she had been. She waited.
Gazing at the fire, his long legs straight out and crossed at the ankles, his hands clasped behind his head, he lounged luxuriously in a great arm chair. Without turning his gaze from the burning logs he began:
"If I could do exactly what I wished——"
"Which you may," interjected Mrs. Waller.
"I'd saddle Blazing Star and Red Rover at seven o'clock in the morning and ride with Belle and not come back till noon."
"Ha, ha!" laughed Mrs. Waller and the Colonel. "You children! You two little, little ones! Well, we must remember that Belle is still a bride and will be for another month, so we'll bid you Godspeed on the new wedding trip and have your breakfast ready at half past six."
Early hours are the rule in a fort at the front, so the young folk were not alone at breakfast. And when they rode away on their two splendid horses, many eyes followed with delight the noble beauty of the pair—so fitly mounted, so gladly young and strong.
"Now, where, Jim?" said Belle, as they left the gate and thundered over the bridge at a mettlesome lope. And as she asked, she remembered that that was the very question he used always to put to her.
"Belle" (he reined in Blazing Star), "I have been waiting till it seemed just right—waiting for the very time, so we could stand again at our shrine. Sometimes I think I know my way and the trail I ought to seek, and sometimes I am filled with doubt; but I know I shall have the clear vision if we stand again as we used to stand, above our world, beside the Spirit Rock, on the high peak of our mountain."
And then, in the soft sign language of the rein let loose, the ribs knee-nudged, they bade their horses go. Side by side they rode and swung like newly mated honkers in the spring—like two centaurs, feeling in themselves the power, the blood rush of their every bound. In less than half an hour they passed the little town and were at the foot of Cedar Mountain. The horses would have gone up at speed, but the riders held them in, and the winding trail was slowly followed up.