He looked at his watch. “Half after eight.”
“If father isn’t on this side of the divide now he won’t try to cross. If he’s coming down the slope he’ll be here in an hour, although that trail is a tolerably tough proposition this minute. A patch of dead timber on a dark night is sure a nuisance, even to a good man. He may not make it.”
“Shall I fire my gun?”
“What for?”
“As a signal to him.”
This amused her. “Daddy don’t need any hint about direction—what he needs is a light to see the twist of the trail through those fallen logs.”
“Couldn’t I rig up a torch and go to meet him?”
She put her hand on his arm. “You stay right here!” she commanded. “You couldn’t follow that trail five minutes.”
“You have a very poor opinion of my skill.”
“No, I haven’t; but I know how hard it is to keep direction on a night like this and I don’t want you wandering around in the timber. Father can take care of himself. He’s probably sitting under a big tree smoking his pipe before his fire—or else he’s at home. He knows we’re all right, and we are. We have wood and grub, and plenty of blankets, and a roof over us. You can make your bed under this fly,” she said, looking up at the canvas. “It beats the old balsam as a roof. You mustn’t sleep cold again.”