When a hill shut off the view from Adonia the bays swung into a side lane which connected with the tote road leading north along the Noda waters.
A girl who wore for her armor Latisan’s jacket and his cap, and carried as credentials the woods baton of the last of the independent timber barons of the Noda, was hastening on her mission with the same sort of fervent zeal that made Joan of Arc a conqueror.
Family fealty, the eager desire to right in some measure the wrong done by her father, anxious determination to repair her own fault—all these were animating impulses in this Joan of the Northland. But now especially was she aware that she was seeking by service to absolve herself in the estimation of a poor chap whose love for her had made him forget his duty.
There was no talk between the girl and her charioteer. She had plenty of thought to occupy her, and he drove on with his gaze straight between the ears of the nigh horse.
The road was crooked; when she glanced behind, the woods seemed to be shutting doors on her, closing out the world with which she had been familiar; and ahead, as the road turned, she was looking into vistas which led to the unknown—to a duty of tremendous import—to a task which seemed too great for a girl to accomplish. One knowledge comforted her—it was a knowledge which came from her childhood memories—she could trust those rough men of the woods to treat a girl with respect if she deserved it; but would she be able to convince them that the girl who wrought such mischief to Ward Latisan deserved respect? They might, as her grandfather said, ridicule a man who had been fooled by a girl, if that man appeared to them and tried to make good his authority; but there would be no laugh in the north country behind Latisan’s back, now that he had fled desperately from the wreck of his prospects.
She perceived only silent rebuke, even resentment, in Dick’s countenance when she stole glances at the hard profile above the old man’s knitted scarf. It was plain that he did not relish his job. She wondered whether he believed that her errand was useless. When, after a time, she tried to draw some opinion out of him he gave her no replies that aided her.
She felt acutely that she needed sympathy—something for her encouragement. The old man’s taciturnity hinted that he could be trusted with a secret so far as outsiders were concerned; as to Flagg, she was not sure of Dick’s reliability in keeping anything away from a master to whom he was devoted. But if the old man were kept away from Adonia——
“Do I understand that you’re to stay north until I’m ready to go back?”
She was choking with the desire to tell him who she was. The lie which she had told him in the tavern was a rankling memory—he had been such a pitiful figure that day.