“He’s left signposts all along the way. There’s one track. See? And there’s another. They’re big tracks and they are far apart. The spread of his forefeet shows that he’s a bull. Now notice where he broke the brush here and how trampled down the young aspens are. His horn ripped the bark clear off this tree. See how far from the ground it is. That shows his height.”
“Yes, but how do you know he was frightened?”
“He dived into the brush mighty reckless. Why didn’t he wait and turn off there by the big rock where the going would be easy? I reckon he thought he hadn’t time.”
They camped far up beside a mountain lake. He pitched tent in a beautiful grove of wide-spaced pines through which a brook sang its way down to the lake. While he unpacked and made preparations for supper Ruth took the rod to try her luck. When she returned half an hour later the tent was pegged down, young pine boughs cut and spread for a bed, and the fire going for their meal. Rowan had the water on to boil for coffee, and slices of bacon in the frying pan ready to set upon the rocks that hedged in his coals.
“I got the big fellow on a royal coachman. He took it with a rush,” she explained.
McCoy cleaned the fish in the brook and cooked them in the pan when the bacon grease was ready. They ate with the healthy appetite of outdoor animals in the hills.
Ruth told him the gossip of the ranch and of the neighbourhood. She retailed to him what she knew of the politics of the county. It pleased her that his interest in these far-away topics was as yet perfunctory. His world just now consisted of three persons, and of the three she was the most important.
“You’re going to lose Jennings,” she told him.
“Isn’t he satisfied?”
Little imps of mischief danced in her eyes. “Not quite, but I think he’s going to be. He has notions of marrying a handsome widow with a sheep ranch.”