“Only through the woods. Only to within sight of the house.”
“The road is guarded.”
“Yes, I know that. I’ll get my snowshoes. Half a minute. You wait here. I’ll be back in two ticks.”
He turned and ran. His rackets were in the woodshed; and he was soon back with them. But the young woman was not where he had left her. He went forward, studying the edges of the road. He turned into the Goose Creek road; and then it wasn’t long before he found where she had jumped off into a clump of brush. He tightened and tied the thongs of his snowshoes with eager fingers and followed eagerly on her tracks.
CHAPTER VII
THE KNOCKOUT
Vane came up with her within a mile of the jump-off—and this was closer than he had hoped for. She neither welcomed nor reproved him, but only remarked in a noncommittal voice that he had not been long. He passed ahead of her, to break trail, and saw that she was back-tracking on her outward course. He tramped in silence, glancing frequently over his shoulder. Presently he found himself hanging on his stride for her; and at last she called, “I must rest a minute.”
He found her a seat among the raking boughs of a deep-drifted blow-down. Neither of them spoke during the brief rest; and in the forest gloom the face of each was no more than a blurred mask to the other’s eyes. She soon stood up and moved on, and again he passed her and led the way. In places the gloom shut down in absolute dark, with the vague glimmer of rifts of faint starshine far behind and far ahead. It was in such a place that he became suddenly aware that she was no longer moving close after the dragging tails of his rackets. He halted and stood for a few seconds, listening. He moved back slowly; and soon he came upon her crouched, sobbing, in the snow.
“It is my foot, my ankle,” she said in broken and contrite tones. “I fell and hurt it—before you overtook me.”