The girl laid a hand flat on my mare's neck and looked at me, the shy caress in her gesture and in her eyes.
Both were meant for my horse; and a quick kindness for this Scotch girl came into my heart.
"Take shelter at the Mayfield fort," said I, "and be very certain I shall not forget you. You may gallop all the way on this soft wood-road. Will you care for Kaya at the fort when she is unsaddled?"
A smile suddenly curved her lips.
"Yes, John Drogue," she answered, looking me in the eyes. And the next moment she was off at a gallop, her yellow hair loosened with the first bound of the horse, and flying all about her face and shoulders now, like sunshine flashing across windblown golden-rod.
Then, in her saddle, the girl turned and looked back at me, and sat so, still galloping, until she was out of sight.
And, as I stood there alone in the woodland road, I began to understand what Nick Stoner meant when he called this Scotch girl a disturber of men's minds and a mistress—all unconscious, perhaps—of a very deadly art.