The morning after Dave had brought in the borrowed saddle Irene appeared in a sort of bloomer suit, somewhat wonderfully contrived from the spare skirt to which allusion has been made, and announced a willingness to risk life and limb on any horse that Dave might select for that purpose. He provided her with a dependable mount, and their first journey, taken somewhat gingerly along the principal trail, was accomplished without incident. It was the fore-runner of many others, plunging deeper and deeper into the fastnesses of the foothills, and even into the passes of the very mountains themselves. These long rides through the almost untracked wilderness, frequently along paths on which the element of danger was by no means a mere fancy, and into regions where the girl's sense of distance and direction were totally confused, afforded her many side-lights on the remarkable nature of her escort. His patience was infinite, and, although there were no silk trappings to his courtesy, it was a very genuine and manly deference he paid her. She was quite sure that he would at any moment give his life if needed to defend her from injury—and accept the transaction as a matter of course. His physical endurance was inexhaustible, and his knowledge of prairie and foothill seemed to her almost uncanny. When she had been utterly lost for hours he would suddenly swing their horses' heads about and guide them home with the accuracy of the wild goose on its nights to the nesting grounds. He read every sign of footprint, leaf, water, and sky with unfailing insight. He had no knowledge of books, and she had at first thought him ignorant, but as the days went by she had found in him a mine of wisdom which shamed her ready-made education.
[Illustration: These long rides afforded her many side-lights
on the remarkable nature of her escort.]
After such a ride they one day dismounted in a grassy opening among the trees that bordered a mountain canyon. The waters of ages had chiselled a sharp passage through the rock, and the green stream now swirled in its rapid course a hundred feet below. Fragments of rock, loosened by the sun and wind and frost of centuries, had fallen from time to time, leaving sheltered nooks and shelves in the walls of the canyon. In one of these crevices they found a flat stone that gave comfortable seating, and here they rested while the horses browsed their afternoon meal on the grass above. Little irregular bits of stone had broken off the parent rock, and for awhile they amused themselves with tossing these into the water. But both were conscious of a gradually increasing tension in the atmosphere. For days the boy had been moody. It was evident he was harbouring something that was calling through his nature for expression, and Irene knew that this afternoon he would talk of more than trees and rocks and footprints of the wild things of the forest.
"Your father is gettin' along well," he said at length.
"Yes," she answered. "He has had a good holiday, even with his broken leg. He is looking ever so much better."
"You will be goin' away before long," he continued.
"Yes," she answered, soberly, and waited.
"Things about here ain't goin' to be the same after you're gone," he went on. He was avoiding her eyes and industriously throwing bits of crumbled rock into the canyon. He wore no coat, and the neck of his shirt was open, for the day was warm. Had he caught her side-long glances even his slow, self-deprecating mind must have read their admiration. But he kept his eyes fixed on the green water.