Zephyr smiled appreciatively.
"She's got her father's grit and Pierre's example. Her sense is rattling round in her head, as her nonsense is outside of it. She'll do all right without help, if it comes to that; but it won't."
Madame rose, as if to depart. Zephyr waved her to her seat.
"Not yet. You rest here for a while. It's a hard climb up here and a hard climb down. I'll shake things up a little on my prospect. I'll be back by dinner-time."
He picked up a hammer and drills and went still farther up the mountain. Having reached the Inferno, he began his work. Perhaps he had no thought of Jael or Sisera; but he smote his drill with a determined emphasis that indicated ill things for Pierre. Jael pinned the sleeping head of Sisera to the earth. Sleeping or waking, resisting or acquiescent, Pierre's head was in serious danger, if it threatened Élise.
Zephyr loaded the hole and lighted the fuse, then started for the camp. A loud explosion startled Madame from the most peaceful repose she had enjoyed for many a day.
After dinner Zephyr saw Madame safely down the worst of the trail.
"Pierre is not all bad," he remarked, at parting. "You just restez tranquille and don't worry. It's a pretty thick fog that the sun can't break through, and, furthermore, a fog being only limited, as it were, and the sun tolerably persistent, it's pretty apt to get on top at most unexpected seasons."
Madame completed the remainder of her journey with very different emotions from those with which she had begun it. She entered the back door of the Blue Goose. Pierre was not in the room, as she had half expected, half feared. She looked around anxiously, then dropped into a chair. The pendulum changed its swing. She was under the old influences again. Zephyr and the mountain-top were far away. A thousand questions struggled in her mind. Why had she not thought of them before? It was no use. Again she was groping for help. She recalled a few of Zephyr's words.
"Élise isn't going to marry Morrison, and Pierre's going to give her up."