Recognizing a kindred nature, Kermode looked sympathetic. She was evidently alluding to her lameness, which must prove a heavy handicap to a girl of the active, sanguine temperament he thought she possessed.
“In a way, it was a great adventure for you to come out here alone over the new road,” he said.
“I thought so last night,” she confessed with a smile. “When I reached the settlement and found I could get no farther, I was really scared. Now, however, all my fears have gone. I suppose it’s the sunshine and this glorious air.”
“Well, we had better get on. I’m afraid you’ll have to walk a while.”
She let him lift her down, with no sign of prudishness or coquetry, and he led the horse uphill while she followed. Her attitude pleased him, because he had no desire for philandering, although he was content to act as protector and guide. Still, while he adapted his pace to the girl’s he thought about her. Her rather shabby attire and scanty baggage hinted that she had not been used to affluence; but she showed signs of possessing a vigorous, well-trained mind, and he decided that she must have been a teacher.
When they reached the top of the ascent, she mounted and they went on among scattered clumps of pines and across a tableland as fast as he could travel, because it seemed prudent to place as long a distance as possible between them and the settlement. He had left the place with a valuable horse and saddle which he had not paid for, and he was very dubious whether the livery-stable keeper would be satisfied with the promises he had left. Accordingly he only stopped for half an hour at noon; and evening was near when he helped the girl down and picketed the horse beside a small birch bluff, and set up the tent.
“There are provisions in my pack and you might lay out supper, but I don’t think we’ll make a fire to-night,” he said. “I’ll be back in about half an hour; I want to see what lies beyond the top of yonder ridge.”
She let him go, and he climbed between slender birches to the summit of a long rise, where he lay down and lighted his pipe. From his lofty position he commanded a wide sweep of country—hills whose higher slopes were still bathed in warm light, valleys filled with cool blue shadow, straggling ranks of somber pines. The air was sharp and wonderfully bracing; the wilderness, across which he could wander where he would, lured him on. Irresponsible and impatient of restraint, as he was, he delighted in the openness and solitude. For all that, he concentrated his gaze on one particular strip of bare hillside. At its foot ran the gorge they had crossed, but it had now grown narrow and precipitous, a deep chasm wrapped in shadow. He did not think a horse could be led down into it, which was consoling, because if any pursuit had been attempted, it would follow the opposite side, near which a trail ran.
After a while his vigilance was rewarded, and he smiled when three very small figures of mounted men appeared on the hillslope. They were going back disappointed, and he did not think he had much to fear from them. Wages were high about the settlement, where everybody was busy, and the liveryman would, no doubt, find the search too costly to persist in. When the horsemen had vanished, he returned to the camp, and Miss Foster glanced at him keenly.
“Supper’s quite ready; you have been some time,” she said. “What did you see from the top?”