“You will not. I say it.” He wasn’t going to be disappointed of his fun along the way by the presence of this girl, and no time had been told him when that parcel must be delivered. It must come to the Judge sometime, that was all. The later the better for him, Anton, the more leisure to enjoy the wild and escape that eternal carrying of wood. “You will not,” he repeated, more firmly.
“I will so. That is for my father. His name is on it and it is ‘Important.’ I will see that he gets it. I don’t trust you, Anton.”
He was rather impressed by the fact that she could read what was written—he could not. He was also angered further by that unwise remark about not trusting him. He stared at her, she stared back. Good! It was a battle of wills, then!
He seemed to waver, smiled, and shrugged his shoulders. All roads lead to one’s goal, if one knows them. He was an Indian. He could not be lost in any forest, he who was wise in woodcraft and could tell all directions by signs this “foreigner” could not know. He snapped his fingers, airily, pricked Bess forward again and into a trackless wilderness.
For a moment Molly hesitated. Should she go back and give up this chase? Turning around she gazed about her and could not tell which way she had come.
“Why! I couldn’t go back, even if I tried. I don’t see any track and—I must follow him. I can hear him on ahead, by the breaking branches—Forward, Queenie, quick, quick!”
But Queenie wasn’t pleased to “forward.” She shrank from the rude pressure of the undergrowth against her delicate shanks and, for an instant, set her forefeet stubbornly among the ferns and brambles. But Molly was now past tenderness with any mount which would not do her will and Queenie was forced into the path she hated to tread. Already the brief delay had cost her the sound of the gray mare’s progress. There was neither breaking twig nor footfall to tell her whither that tormenting Anton had vanished. There was only the bruised herbage to show which way he had ridden and she must follow; and for a long time she kept her eyes on that faint lead and steadily pursued it.
Then she came to a partly open glade and there she lost the trail entirely. Across this glade Anton had certainly passed but in which direction she couldn’t even guess. She reined Queenie to a stand and called:
“Anton! Anton! ANTON!!” and after another interval, again: “ANTON!”
There was an agony of fear in that last cry. Had Anton heard it, even his mischievous heart would have been touched and he would have ridden back to reassure her. But he did not hear her. He had now struck out from that narrow clearing into a road he knew well, by the blazed trees and the wheel-marks the camp-teamster had left upon it. The undergrowth had sprung up again, almost as completely as before it had been first disturbed, and even had Molly found that trail she would not have known enough to trace it.