"I will," she said.
A moment later Aldous was telling MacDonald that Joanne wanted him. The old mountaineer stared. He drew his pipe from his mouth, beat out its half-burned contents, and thrust it into its accustomed pocket.
"She wants to see me?" he asked. "God bless her soul—what for?"
"Because she thinks you're lonesome up here alone, Mac. And look here"—Aldous leaned over to MacDonald—"her nerves are ready to snap. I know it. There's a mighty good reason why I can't relieve the strain she is under. But you can. She's thinking every minute of that mountain up there and the grave behind it. You go back, and talk. Tell her about the first time you ever came up through these valleys—you and Jane. Will you, Mac? Will you tell her that?"
MacDonald did not reply, but he dropped behind. Aldous took up the lead. A few minutes later he looked back, and laughed softly under his breath. Joanne and the old hunter were riding side by side in the creek bottom, and Joanne was talking. He looked at his watch. He did not look at it again until the first gaunt, red shoulder of the sandstone mountain began to loom over them. An hour had passed since he left Joanne. Ahead of him, perhaps a mile distant, was the cragged spur beyond which—according to the sketch Keller had drawn for him at the engineers' camp—was the rough canyon leading back to the basin on the far side of the mountain. He had almost reached this when MacDonald rode up.
"You go back, Johnny," he said, a singular softness in his hollow voice. "We're a'most there."
He cast his eyes over the western peaks, where dark clouds were shouldering their way up in the face of the sun, and added:
"There's rain in that. I'll trot on ahead with Pinto and have a tent ready when you come. I reckon it can't be more'n a mile up the canyon."
"And the grave, Mac?"
"Is right close to where I'll pitch the tent," said MacDonald, swinging suddenly behind the pack-horse Pinto, and urging him into a trot. "Don't waste any time, Johnny."