As for her, while she ate, she continually listened, and if a twig broke, she started. For this she laughed at herself once.
“But if he should come,” she said, “if he should come....”
The Inger looked at her, that once, steadfastly.
“If he should come,” he said, “I could save you—now.”
The elusive trail which had baffled him, led with perfect distinctness along a little shelf three steps up and around that sharp height of rocks which he had scaled, and then the trail dipped down into a narrow cañon, and up. Before the sun was an hour high, they were on their way again.
With their brisk progress, her spirits rose, and once, to the Inger’s exquisite delight, she broke into a lilt of song.
“You sing the way you laugh,” he said awkwardly. And she flashed him a smile, over shoulder, as she had done that morning on the desert.
A tanager drew a line of scarlet through the trees, and burned from a bough before them. In an instant the Inger’s hand was raised, and he had aimed. But in that second, his arm was struck aside, the shot glanced harmlessly among the trees, and the bird flashed safe to the thicket.
He looked round at her in open amazement.
“What did y’ do that for?” he demanded.