“Nothing; all we can do is to stand pat and act as if we belonged here.”
“Very well,” he replied, moving stiffly toward the door. “Here’s where I can be of some service. I am an excellent white liar.”
As our hero crawled out into the brilliant sunshine some part of his courage came back to him. Though lame in every muscle, he was not ill. That was the surprising thing. His head was clear, and his breath full and deep. “My lungs are all right,” he said to himself. “I’m not going to collapse.” And he looked round him with a new-born admiration of the wooded hills which rose in somber majesty on either side the roaring stream. “How different it all looks this morning,” he said, remembering the deep blackness of the night.
The beat of hoofs upon the bridge drew his attention to the cavalcade, which the keen eyes of the girl had detected as it came over the ridge to the east. The party consisted of two men and two women and three pack-horses completely outfitted for the trail.
One of the women, spurring her horse to the front, rode serenely up to where Wayland stood, and called out: “Good morning. Are you the ranger?”
“No, I’m only the guard. The ranger has gone down the trail.”
He perceived at once that the speaker was an alien like himself, for she wore tan-colored riding-boots, a divided skirt of expensive cloth, and a jaunty, wide-rimmed sombrero. She looked, indeed, precisely like the heroine of the prevalent Western drama. Her sleeves, rolled to the elbow, disclosed shapely brown arms, and her neck, bare to her bosom, was equally sun-smit; but she was so round-cheeked, so childishly charming, that the most critical observer could find no fault with her make-up.
One of the men rode up. “Hello, Norcross. What are you doing over here?”
The youth smiled blandly. “Good morning, Mr. Belden. I’m serving my apprenticeship. I’m in the service now.”
“The mischief you are!” exclaimed the other. “Where’s Tony?”