But the call to breakfast interrupted the conversation.
Another hour and the front of the little cabin appeared like an inscrutable face on the side of the mountain, with closed eyes and sealed lips. No need to bar the door now from the sheriff and his men, for the birds had flown. But because she was never to see the little house again, and because, in spite of everything, she had known some happiness there, Minnie dropped the calico curtain at the window and fastened the wooden latch on the door. It was the last rites before she buried her old life forever in the mountains and began a new one with Jim in the East.
With an expression of grave determination on her face she took her seat beside Nancy in the front and never once looked back until they had rounded the curve of the mountain.
Nobody talked much on that morning ride. Billie was engaged in guiding the Comet carefully along the dangerous road which cut through a cleft in the mountain, and in many places was just wide enough for the car to pass. Sometimes they were on the edge of such dizzy heights that Miss Campbell held her breath and clenched her teeth to keep from crying out.
“I dare not even whisper,” she said to herself, “for fear of startling that child at the wheel.”
She contented herself with clutching Daniel Moore’s arm, but in her heart she doubted if even Jim’s salvation was worth the risk of so many lives. As for the girls, they had hardly realized the dangers of the ride, so absorbed were they in the marvelous scenery. The snow caps of the distant ranges gleamed pink in the sunshine, and deep purple shadows lay on the ravines below.
As the Comet mounted up and up the steep grade, Miss Campbell’s head became lighter and lighter, and her fears seemed to slip away. The high altitude had a strangely intoxicating effect on Nancy, too. She began to laugh just from the sheer joy of living.
“I feel like an inhabitant of Mars,” she said. “Just a brains and a stomach, and no body. I haven’t but two sensations—hunger and happiness.”
“Minnie, it’s ten minutes of twelve o’clock,” said Billie presently. “Are we anywhere near the Gap?”
The car had now turned a curve on the mountain and was going down grade.