Part 11 (1/2)

Hazel colored hotly at his mention of Perkins, but for the latter part of his speech she could have hugged him. Bill Wagstaff went a long way, in those brief sentences, toward demolis.h.i.+ng her conviction that no man ever overlooked an opportunity of taking advantage of a woman.

But Bill said nothing further. He stood a moment longer by her horse, resting one hand on Silk's mane, and sc.r.a.ping absently in the soft earth with the toe of his boot.

”Well, let's get somewhere,” he said abruptly. ”If you're too saddle sore to ride, walk a while. I'll go slower.”

She walked, and the exercise relieved the cramping ache in her limbs.

Roaring Bill's slower pace was fast enough at that. She followed till her strength began to fail. And when in spite of her determination she lagged behind, he stopped at the first water.

”We'll camp here,” he said. ”You're about all in, and we can't get anywhere to-night, I see plainly.”

Hazel accepted this dictum as best she could. She eat down on a mossy rock while he stripped the horses of their gear and staked them out.

Then Bill started a fire and fixed the roll of bedding by it for her to sit on. Dusk crept over the forest while he cooked supper, making a bannock in the frying pan to take the place of bread; and when they had finished eating and washed the few dishes, night shut down black as the pit.

They talked little. Hazel was in the grip of utter forlornness, moody, wishful to cry. Roaring Bill lumped on his side of the fire, staring thoughtfully into the blaze. After a long period of abstraction he glanced at his watch, then arose and silently arranged her bed. After that he spread his saddle blankets and lay down.

Hazel crept into the covers and quietly sobbed herself to sleep. The huge and silent land appalled her. She had been chucked neck and crop into the primitive, and she had not yet been able to react to her environment. She was neither faint-hearted nor hysterical. The grind of fending for herself in a city had taught her the necessity of self-control. But she was worn out, unstrung, and there is a limit to a woman's endurance.

As on the previous night, she wakened often and glanced over to the fire. Roaring Bill kept his accustomed position, flat in the glow.

She had no fear of him now. But he was something of an enigma. She had few illusions about men in general. She had encountered a good many of them in one way and another since reaching the age when she coiled her hair on top of her head. And she could not recall one--not even Jack Barrow--with whom she would have felt at ease in a similar situation. She knew that there was a something about her that drew men. If the presence of her had any such effect on Bill Wagstaff, he painstakingly concealed it.

And she was duly grateful for that. She had not believed it a characteristic of his type--the virile, intensely masculine type of man. But she had not once found him looking at her with the same expression in his eyes that she had seen once over Jim Briggs' dining table.

Night pa.s.sed, and dawn ushered in a clearing sky. Ragged wisps of clouds chased each other across the blue when they set out again.

Hazel walked the stiffness out of her muscles before she mounted. When she did get on Silk, Roaring Bill increased his pace. He was long-legged and light of foot, apparently tireless. She asked no questions. What was the use? He would eventually come out somewhere.

She was resigned to wait.

After a time she began to puzzle, and the old uneasiness came back.

The last trailing banner of cloud vanished, and the sun rode clear in an opal sky, smiling benignly down on the forested land. She was thus enabled to locate the cardinal points of the compa.s.s. Wherefore she took to gauging their course by the shadows. And the result was what set her thinking. Over level and ridge and swampy hollow, Roaring Bill drove straight north in an undeviating line. She recollected that the point from which she had lost her way had lain northeast of Cariboo Meadows. Even if they had swung in a circle, they could scarcely be pointing for the town in that direction. For another hour Bill held to the northern line as a needle holds to the pole. A swift rush of misgiving seized her.

”Mr. Wagstaff!” she called sharply.

Roaring Bill stopped, and she rode Silk up past the pack horses.

”Where are you taking me?” she demanded.

”Why, I'm taking you home--or trying to,” he answered mildly.

”But you're going _north_,” she declared. ”You've been going north all morning. I was north of Cariboo Meadows when I got lost. How can we get back to Cariboo Meadows by going still farther north?”

”You're more of a woodsman than I imagined,” Bill remarked gently. He smiled up at her, and drew out his pipe and tobacco pouch.

She looked at him for a minute. ”Do you know where we are now?” she asked quietly.

He met her keen gaze calmly. ”I do,” he made laconic answer.

”Which way is Cariboo Meadows, then, and how far is it?” she demanded.

”General direction south,” he replied slowly. ”Fifty miles more or less. Rather more than less.”

”And you've been leading me straight north!” she cried. ”Oh, what am I going to do?”