Harding unhooked the broken wire from the back of the wagon.
"Well," he said, "we must set about getting up."
The ascending trail had a gentler slope, and there was not much risk in climbing it; though it cost them heavy labor. With the help of a yoke of oxen, they got the wagon up, and when the top was reached Kenwyne came up to Harding.
"You and Devine have done enough," he said. "There should be no trouble now. We'll lead the teams home while you take it easy."
Harding was glad to comply. He followed with Hester and Mrs. Broadwood, because Beatrice seemed so evidently trying to avoid him.
The girl felt disturbed. When she thought that Harding could not escape, a curious sense of personal loss had intensified her alarm. Terror, of course, was natural; the other feeling was not to be explained so readily. Although she disliked some of his opinions, she knew that he attracted her. His was a magnetic nature: he exerted a strong influence over every one; but she would not admit that she was in love with him. That would be absurd. And yet she had been deeply stirred by his danger.
Lance and Devine had lingered in the rear, and the little group stopped in the middle of the trail and waited for them. Then, when they moved forward again, Beatrice and Harding were somehow thrown together, and she checked the impulse to overtake the others when she saw that she and the prairie man were falling behind. To avoid being alone with him would exaggerate his importance.
"You must have known you were doing a dangerous thing when you got up on the wagon," she said.
"I suppose I did," he replied. "But I saw that I might lose the boiler if it went down the bank. The thing cost a good deal of money."
"You were able to remember that?"