She understood how Babe Deveril, as any man should be, was relieved at knowing that the man he had stricken down was not dead; that he, himself, was not hunted as a murderer. And yet she was vaguely distressed and uneasy. She felt a change in him, and in his attitude toward her.... When he awaited her reply, she made none. Again fatigue swept over her, and with it a new stirring of uneasiness....
There was a drop of coffee left; she leaned forward and took it, thinking: "He had his tobacco, and it has bolstered up his nerves." She drank and then sat back, leaning against a tree, her face hidden from him, while she searched his face in the dim light, searched it with a stubborn desire to read the most hidden thought in his brain.
"I am tired," she said after a long while. He could make nothing of her voice, low and impersonal, and with no inflection to give it expression beyond the brief meanings of the words themselves. "Very tired. Yet necessity drives. And it is not safe here, so near them. I can go on for another hour, perhaps two or three hours. That will mean ... how far? Four or five miles; maybe six, seven?"
Not only for one hour, not alone for just two or three hours did they push on. But for half of that silent, starry night. A score of times Babe Deveril said to her: "We've done our stunt; if any girl on earth ever earned rest, you've done it." But always there was that driving force and that allure, and another ridge just ahead, and her answer: "Another mile.... I can do it."
Deveril, with a lighted match cupped in his hand, looked at his watch.
"It's long after midnight; nearly one o'clock."
They found a sheltered spot among the tall pines; above them the keen edge of an up-thrust ridge; just below a thick-grown clump of underbrush; underfoot dry needles, fallen and drifted from the pines. Again he was all courtesy and kindliness toward her, seeing her hard pressed, judging her, despite her mask of hardihood, near collapse. So he cut pine boughs with his knife and broke them with his hands, and of them piled her a couch. She thanked him gently; impulsively she gave him her hand ... though, as his caught it eagerly, she jerked it away quickly.... He watched her lie down, snuggling her cheek against the curve of her arm. Near by he lay down on his back, his two hands under his head, his eyes on the stars. A curious smile twitched at his lips.
And then, just as they were dropping off to sleep, they heard far off a long-drawn, howling cry piercing through the great hush. Lynette started up, her blood quickening; as she had heard Bruce Standing's warning call that first time, so now did she think to hear it again. Deveril leaped to his feet, no less startled. A moment later he called softly to her, and it seemed to Lynette that he forced a tone of lightness which did not ring true:
"A timber wolf ... but one that runs on four legs! It won't come near." Then, as she made no answer and he could not see her face, he asked sharply: "What did you think it was?"
She shivered and lay back.