He was stammering so that he couldn't finish his thoughts, and she broke in: "If he will not come to me, then I must go to him."
"Follow Pierre le Rouge?" queried Wilbur. "Miss Brown, you're an optimist. But that's because you've never seen him ride. I consider it a good day's work to start out with him and keep within sight till night, but as for following and overtaking him—ha, ha, ha, ha!"
He laughed heartily at the thought.
And she smiled a little sadly, answering: "But I have the most boundless patience in the world. He may gallop all the way, but I will walk, and keep on walking, and reach him in the end. I am not very strong, but—"
Her hands moved out as though testing their power, gripping at the air.
"Where will you go to hunt for him?"
"I don't know. But every evening, when I look out at the sunset hills, with the purple along the valleys, I think that he must be out there somewhere, going toward the highest ranges. If I were up in that country I know that I could find him."
"Never in a thousand years."
"Why?"
"Because he's on the trail—"