“Reckon you're late,” he said, as with a comprehensive flash of eye he took in the three.
“Milt, I got lost,” replied Roy.
“I feared as much.... You girls look like you'd done better to ride with me,” went on Dale, as he offered a hand to help Bo off. She took it, tried to get her foot out of the stirrups, and then she slid from the saddle into Dale's arms. He placed her on her feet and, supporting her, said, solicitously: “A hundred-mile ride in three days for a tenderfoot is somethin' your uncle Al won't believe.... Come, walk if it kills you!”
Whereupon he led Bo, very much as if he were teaching a child to walk. The fact that the voluble Bo had nothing to say was significant to Helen, who was following, with the assistance of Roy.
One of the huge rocks resembled a sea-shell in that it contained a hollow over which the wide-spreading shelf flared out. It reached toward branches of great pines. A spring burst from a crack in the solid rock. The campfire blazed under a pine, and the blue column of smoke rose just in front of the shelving rock. Packs were lying on the grass and some of them were open. There were no signs here of a permanent habitation of the hunter. But farther on were other huge rocks, leaning, cracked, and forming caverns, some of which perhaps he utilized.
“My camp is just back,” said Dale, as if he had read Helen's mind. “To-morrow we'll fix up comfortable-like round here for you girls.”
Helen and Bo were made as easy as blankets and saddles could make them, and the men went about their tasks.
“Nell—isn't this—a dream?” murmured Bo.
“No, child. It's real—terribly real,” replied Helen. “Now that we're here—with that awful ride over—we can think.”
“It's so pretty—here,” yawned Bo. “I'd just as lief Uncle Al didn't find us very soon.”