"If we are to get over the mountain before dark we must hurry," she said. "See—it is a big mountain!"
She pointed to a barren break in the northward range, close up to the snow-covered peaks.
"And it's cold up there when night comes," she added.
"Can you make it?" David asked. "Aren't you tired? Your feet sore? We can wait here until morning...."
"I can climb it," she cried, with an excitement which he had not seen in her before. "I can climb it—and travel all night—to tell Brokaw and Hauck I don't belong to them any more, and that we're going away! Brokaw will be like a mad beast, and before we go I'll scratch his eyes out!"
"Good Lord!" gasped David under his breath.
"And if Hauck swears at me I'll scratch his out!" she declared, trembling in the glorious anticipation of her vengeance. "I'll ... I'll scratch his out, anyway, for what he did to Nisikoos!"
David stared at her. She was looking away from him, her eyes on the break between the mountains, and he noticed how tense her slender body had become and how tightly her hands were clenched.
"They won't dare to touch me or swear at me when you are there," she added, with sublime faith.
She turned in time to catch the look in his face. Swiftly the excitement faded out of her own. She touched his arm, hesitatingly.