And all the way her mind was busy with the long debt that Marsh House owed to Wildwater. The Ratcliffes had been first to strike; they had used treachery, when the Waynes scomed guile of any sort; they were bringing all their heavy weight of odds to bear against this solitary foe who would not move a hair's-breadth from their path. Well, she must use guile, since Wayne of Marsh would not, and she would save him in his own despite.
"I am no Ratcliffe," she cried, turning into the Wildwater bridle track. "I am a Wayne, with less wilful pride than they, and twice their wit to get them out of danger."
The stone which bounded the Ratcliffe lands on the side toward Ling Crag stood on the right hand of her road. Her eyes fell on it absently, and she would have passed it by, but something lying on it caught her glance—something that showed white against the rain-soaked blackness of the stone. She drew near, and for a moment sickened, for the man's hand that lay there was meant for hardier eyes than hers.
Awed she was, but curious too, as she drew near to the stone, wondering what this token, which her grandfather had often told her of, was doing here on the Wildwater land. And then she saw that beside the hand five words were scrawled untidily in chalk. "From Wayne to Ratcliffe—greeting," ran the message.
Janet, bewildered, read and re-read the words, and then their meaning flashed across her mind. Last night they had attacked Shameless Wayne, and he had routed them; and afterward he had cut off the right hand of him whose horse had come back riderless to Wildwater, and had answered the Lean Man after his own fashion. A dauntlessness there was about the message, a disregard of odds, that suited the girl's temper.
"I need not fear for Wayne of Marsh," she said, her eyes brightening. "If he means to hunt the hunters—why, Our Lady fights for all such gallant fools—Yet, shall I leave it there?"
She eyed the token doubtfully and seemed minded to remove it, lest the Lean Man's hate should be fanned to a hotter flame. But something checked her—a touch of Wayne's own recklessness, perhaps, and her new-found faith that victory would be with him in the long run. She turned about, leaving the hand there under the naked sky, and made for home. Almost eager she was to reach Wildwater; she was returning now, not to kinsmen whose battles were her own, but to foes—Waynes' foes and hers—who would tell her the last detail of their plots.
A half-mile nearer Wildwater she chanced on Red Ratcliffe, striding through the heather with a merlin hawk on his wrist, and a brace of hares slung by a leathern thong about his shoulders.
"I've sought thee all the morning," he said, standing across her path.
His face was lowering, and she saw that there was mischief in it. "Hadst better seek hares, and conies, and the like," she answered, pointing to his spoil. "That swells the larder—but, well-away, what use is there in seeking one who's tired of mocking thee?"