“Have you strength to go farther? Hadn’t you better wait here?”
“No, no! I can go on! Come, let’s hurry!” and she moved forward.
“Then lean on my arm. That will help you some.”
“No, thank you. I might keep you back. You go on and follow the trail as fast as you can and I will come behind. Don’t stop a minute for me.”
The trail left the arroyo and climbed the hill again and from its summit they could see the crowd of people far toward the north scattering out over the mesa and dotting the hills beyond the mountain road. A banner of smoke lay low against the northern horizon, while across the distance came the faint whistle of an approaching train. A vague remembrance came into Marguerite’s mind that there was to have been trouble in the town, a battle and bloodshed, after the passing of that train, and that she had been anxious on her father’s account. But that all seemed years ago, and the remembrance of it quickly passed.
The trail wandered on, keeping to the hilltops for some time. Mead told Marguerite that the boy had been cold in the early morning and had stayed on the hilltops because it was warmer there when the sun first rose. Then the trail went up and down again, sometimes over the hills and sometimes following the arroyos, sometimes turning on itself and going back, and sometimes circling about in long curves, facing by turns all points of the compass. Along arroyos, and on hillsides that were comparatively barren and sandy it was easily followed. At other times Mead lost it entirely and they would wander about, searching the ground closely. Once Marguerite found the faint track of the shoe when Mead was going away in another direction, and she called him back delightedly. For long distances he would spring rapidly along a trail so faint that it was only by close scrutiny she could see anything, his mind unconsciously marking the distance from one trace to where the next should be, his eye skimming the ground and his quick sight catching the crushed flower stem, the sunken pebble, the broken blade of grass, the tiny depression of heel or toe that marked the way.
The girl toiled on after him, sometimes falling far behind and again catching up and walking by his side. The slumbrous heat of the October day filled the clear, dry air and the sun shone fiercely, unveiled by a single vaporous cloud. Marguerite’s mouth was dry and her throat was parched and all her body called for water. She thought of the thirst and the hunger that must be tormenting the little thing that had been wandering over those sun-flooded hills, with neither food nor drink nor sight of friendly face, for so many hours, and the agony of the thought seemed more than she could endure. Sharp, lightning-like pains cracked through her brain, and a dizzy, chaotic whirl filled her head. She put her hands to her forehead and stopped short on the hillside, the fear flying through her mind that she might be going mad. Mead saw her and came quickly to her side, alarmed by her white, tense face and the wild look of agony in her eyes. Her lips were pale and dry.
“Do not stop!” she pleaded. “It is nothing but a little headache. Don’t stop a minute for me. Five minutes may mean the difference between life and death for my little boy. Hurry on, and I will come close behind you.”
The fear of delaying her companion gave her fresh strength and she went on beside him. In the next arroyo they found a footprint deeply marked in a bed of sand. As Mead glanced at it he saw some grains of sand fall down from the rim of the depression. He called Marguerite’s attention to them.
“We must be close behind him,” he said, “or that sand would not still be trembling on the edge like that.”