“You make the plans an’ I’ll act on them.”
For a moment she was tense and silent, head bowed, hands shut tight. Then she spoke:
“To-night we’ll slip away. You make a light pack, that’ll go on your saddle. I’ll do the same. We’ll hide the horses out near where the trail crosses the brook. An’ we’ll run off—ride out of the country.”
Tappan in turn tried to think, but the whirl of his mind made any reason difficult. This dark-eyed, full-bosomed woman loved him, had surrendered herself, asked only his protection. The thing seemed marvelous. Yet she knelt there, those dark eyes on him, infinitely more appealing than ever, haunting with some mystery of sadness and fear he could not divine.
Suddenly Tappan remembered Jenet.
“I must take Jenet,” he said.
That startled her. “Jenet—Who’s she?”
“My burro.”
“Your burro. You can’t travel fast with that pack beast. We’ll be trailed, an’ we’ll have to go fast.... You can’t take the burro.”
Then Tappan was startled. “What! Can’t take Jenet?—Why, I—I couldn’t get along without her.”