“Wait, child, till we know something about it.”
“She's liable to be right, Liza. The horse, anyway, don't belong, or he'd not run off. That's good judgment, Nancy. Right good for a little girl.”
“I am six years old,” said Nancy, “and I know lots more than that.”
“Well, let's get mother and the bedding started down. It'll be noon before we know it.”
There were two pack-saddles in the wagon, ready against such straits as this. The rolls were made, balanced as side packs, and circled with the swing-ropes, loose cloths, clothes, frying-pans, the lantern, and the axe tossed in to fill the gap in the middle, canvas flung over the whole, and the diamond-hitch hauled taut on the first pack, when a second rider appeared across the river. He came out of a space between the opposite hills, into which the trail seemed to turn, and he was leading the first man's horse. The heavy work before them was forgotten, and the Clallams sat down in a row to watch.
“He's stealing it,” said Mrs. Clallam.
“Then the other man will come out and catch him,” said Nancy.
Mart corrected them. “A man never steals horses that way. He drives them up in the mountains, where the owner don't travel much.”
The new rider had arrived at the bank and came steadily along till opposite the door, where he paused and looked up and down the river.
“See him stoop,” said Clallam the father. “He's seen the tracks don't go further.”