"We go this way," he said. "I'll lead; you follow."
"I know!" cried Lynette; she could not hold the words back. "Toward Buck Valley and Big Bear Creek ... and Mexicali Joe. And...."
"And what?" he demanded, snatching at her chain, sensing that something of import lay behind the abruptly checked words.
She only laughed at him.
CHAPTER XIV
Another day of wilderness wandering. A cabin sighted, but so far away that it was merely a vague dot upon a distant ridge; miner's shack or sheepman's or wood-cutter's? Housing an occupant or deserted for years? No smoke from the rock chimney; no sign of any human being near it. And all view of it so soon lost!... And, afterward, no other human habitation of any kind; no road man-made; only trees and rocks, gorges and ridges and brush, and a winding way to be chosen between them. With, always, Bruce Standing driving on and on, relentlessly on, ever deeper into the wilderness.
A day of life like a leaf torn out of the book of hell for Lynette. He did not speak to her as they went on from dawn to noon and from noon until afternoon shadows gathered; he did not so much as turn his eyes full upon her own; for the most part he seemed altogether forgetful of the fact that, besides himself, there was another of his species in all the wide sweep of this land of mighty solitudes. For his dog, Thor, he had a kindly though rough-spoken word now and then; for his horse a word or a rude pat upon the shoulder or hip; for her nothing but his utter, unruffled silence.... At times she hummed little snatches of gay tunes, hoping to irritate him; at times she strove for an aloofness to match his own. Countless times she looked over her shoulder, looking for Babe Deveril. And so the day, a long day, went by until at last it was late afternoon.
"Here we stop," said Standing abruptly. "Get down."