“Your insisting is useless, you see,” she said. “You are on foot and I have the advantage. No, Don and I will go alone, thank you. Now, will you please tell me the way?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Go back along the road you came,” I said, “until you reach the second, no, the third, path to the right. Follow that to the second on the left. Then follow that for two hundred yards or so until—well, until you reach a clump of bushes, high bushes. Behind these is another path, a blind one, and you must take care to pick the right clump, because there is another one with a path behind it and that path joins the road to Harniss. If you should take the Harniss road you would go miles out of your way. Take the blind path I speak of and—”
She interrupted me. “Stop! stop!” she exclaimed; “please don't. I am absolutely bewildered already. I had no idea I was in such a maze. Let me see! Second to the right; third to the left—”
“No, third to the right and second to the left.”
“And then the bushes and the choice of blind paths. Don, I see plainly that you and I must trust to Providence. Well, it is fortunate that the family are accustomed to my ways. They won't be alarmed, no matter how late I may be.”
“Miss Colton, I am not going to allow you to go alone. Of course I am not. I can set you on the right road and get back here in plenty of time for fishing. The fish are not hungry in the middle of the day.”
“No, but you are. I know you must be, because—no, good day, Mr. Paine.”
She spoke to the horse and he began to move. I took my courage between my teeth, ran after the animal and seized the bridle.
“You are not going alone,” I said, decidedly. I was smiling, but determined.
She looked at me in surprised indignation.