"You must be careful," said Marcos, almost sharply. "You are not thinking what you are doing."
And Juanita suffered the reproof with an unwonted meekness. She was more careful while they passed over a dangerous slope where the snow had softened in the morning sun, and came to the topmost valley--an oval basin of rocks and snow with no visible outlet. Immediately below them, at the foot of a slope, which looked quite feasible, lay huddled the body of a man.
"It is a Carlist," explained Marcos. "We heard some time ago that they had been trying to find another way over to Torre Garda. That valley is a trap. That is not the way to Torre Garda at all; and that slope is solid ice. See, his knife lies beside him. He tried to cut steps before he died. This is our way."
And he led Juanita rather hastily away. At nine o'clock they passed the last shoulder and stood above Torre Garda, and the valley of the Wolf lying in the sunlight below them. The road down the valley lay like a yellow ribbon stretched across the broad breast of Nature.
Half an hour later they reached the pine woods, and heard Perro barking on the terrace. The dog soon came panting to meet them, and not far behind him Sarrion, whose face betrayed no surprise at perceiving Juanita.
"You would have been safer at Pampeluna," he said with a keen glance into her face.
"I am quite safe enough here, thank you," she answered, meeting his eyes with a steady smile.
He asked Marcos whether he had felt his wounded shoulder or suffered from so much exertion. And Juanita answered more fully than Marcos, giving details which she had certainly not learnt from himself. A man having once been nursed in sickness by a woman parts with some portion of his personal liberty which she never relinquishes.
"It is the result of good nursing," said Sarrion, slipping his hand inside Juanita's arm and walking by her side.
"It is the result of his great strength," she answered, with a glance towards Marcos, which he did not perceive, for he was looking straight in front of him.