"You're all right?" she murmured, searching for what she might read in his face.
"Surely!" said Jack wonderingly. Further speech failed him. The sight of her threw him into a great uneasiness that he was at a loss to account for. She was nothing to him, he told himself a little angrily. But he could not keep his eyes off her. She had changed. She looked as if her spirit had travelled a long way these few days and learned many difficult lessons on the road. She had an effect on him as of something he had never seen before, yet something he had been waiting for without knowing it. And this was only Mary Cranston that he thought he knew!
"There was a danger," she said quietly. "I did not know if we would be in time to save—to help you."
"Danger? Save me?" Jack repeated, looking at her stupidly. "Good God! How did you know that?" he presently added.
Mary's agitation broke through her self-contained air. To hide it she hastily busied herself picking up the dishes, and packing them in the grub-box. Fastening the box with its leather hasp, she carried it into her tent. She did not immediately reappear.
"Where have you come from?" Jack demanded of Davy.
"Swan Lake."
"Have you been there ever since you left the fort?"
The boy nodded. "Tom Moosehorn's three children got the measles," he explained. "They are pitching at Swan Lake. Tom came to the fort to ask my father for medicine, and when Mary heard that his children were sick, she said she would go and nurse them, because Tom's wife is a foolish squaw, and don't know what to do for sickness. And I went to take care of Mary."
"Where is Swan Lake?" asked Jack.