Through all the night following Dabney Mills’ veiled accusation of John Herrick, Beatrice slept very little. A tireless procession of thoughts went trooping through her weary mind: Aunt Anna’s story of her brother, that strange vision of John Herrick walking back and forth in the moonlight, the sight of his departure. What did all these things mean in the end? Perhaps John Herrick had gone away forever, perhaps Dabney Mills had real proofs of—no, no that could not be! Come what might, she would never believe anything against John Herrick. It was a help, at least, to think that next day she was to go over the pass to bring Nancy back, and that she could ask the advice of Dr. Minturn. He alone could be trusted with knowledge of both sides of the affair; he would give her counsel from a wise and friendly heart. The comfort of this thought brought her sleep at last.

As early as she could make ready, she set off next morning. She stopped for a minute at the door of the Herrick’s house, hoping to hear that she had been mistaken in her understanding of what she had seen. But no, Hester met her at the door with heavy eyes and told her that John Herrick had gone away very suddenly, “soon after that horrid boy, Dabney Mills, had been here. He took his tent and quite a supply of food. He may have been planning to camp several days, but he didn’t tell me where or why. He just said, ‘so-long Hester; better luck by and by,’ and galloped away.”

Much disheartened, Beatrice turned her horse’s head to the trail and began to mount steadily the zigzag path that led to Gray Cloud Pass. The way had grown familiar now, so that instead of looking out at the wide panorama of mountains or gazing ahead to search out the trail, she was free to observe smaller things: a hollow tree with an owl’s nest in it from which a red-brown head with inquisitive round eyes was thrust to watch her pass; the busy little gophers that popped in and out of their holes at her approach, consumed by both curiosity and alarm; the awkward, unhurried porcupine that crossed the trail ahead of her and disappeared into the brush. She knew well that the forest about her must be alive with tiny, bright eyes and sharp, peering little faces, but she had neither time nor patience to watch for them. So full was she of surging hopes and desires, her one idea was to push forward. To seek advice, find out what was the best thing to do, and then do it—those were the only things that would bring her peace of mind.

The day was not so clear as yesterday had been. The sun shone with less warmth, even as noon approached, the hills were dun-color and the far mountains purple instead of blue. Beatrice was not weather-wise enough to know just what such conditions meant, nor could she have hurried forward more impatiently if she had. Even the willing Buck finally protested against the haste she demanded of him and refused to increase his speed even when she touched him with the whip.

There was a certain level stretch of ground that she remembered, a nook between two rocks, with the stream splashing below. She was determined to reach this spot before she stopped to eat her lunch, although noon had passed and she was beginning to be hungry. She finally came up the last rise of the steep path, breathless with haste, and did not observe the curl of blue smoke that was going up from behind the rocks. Dismounting, and with Buck’s bridle over her arm, she turned the corner of the wall of rock to find her picnic ground occupied. A little fire was burning between two stones, a string of trout hung before it, and a slim black mare grazed lazily beside the mountain wall. The man who turned to greet her was John Herrick.

Her mind had been so full of thoughts of him that for a moment it seemed impossible to speak to him naturally. He also stood, surprised and nonplussed, apparently unable to utter a word. He took Buck’s bridle from her at last and, still in silence, loosened the girths, lifted off the saddle, and let the horse roll luxuriously on the grass.

“You have ridden him too hard,” he said at length, looking at Buck’s wet sides and wide nostrils. “Not even a mountain-bred pony can stand such a pace. Why, did you hurry so? Was there anything the matter?”

“N-no,” replied Beatrice doubtfully. She could not have told him why she had been in such impatient haste; perhaps she could not even explain it to herself. Certainly she was in no hurry to go forward now, but knelt down by the fire and fell to turning the trout, while he picketed her horse and spread a blanket for her to sit on. As she looked up to thank him she saw that the heavy cloud that had been visible on his face when she first saw him was lifted now, making him look his smiling, cheerful self again. It was as though her chance coming had done him good.

The picnic yesterday had been merry, but this one, somehow seemed gayer still. They joked and laughed as they shared in the preparations; he tried to teach her how to make flapjacks and laughed at her awkwardness when she attempted to toss them; she criticized his method of boiling coffee and made him admit that hers was better. As they sat eating he told her tales of past camping adventures; how he had once crawled into a cavern under a cliff to take shelter from the rain and had discovered that it was the home of a most unamiable mountain lion; how, in his tent, far up on Gray Cloud Mountain, a grizzly bear cub had slipped under the canvas and invited itself to share his bed.

“And I had to be polite to the pushing, grunting little beast,” he said, “for its mother and my rifle were both outside.”

After they had finished their lunch they still sat lazily by the fire, watching the thin smoke drift far across the depths below them until it lost itself in the distant blue haze. Beatrice was leaning against the warm rock while her companion sat upright, his clear-cut profile showing against the vast blue sky.

“He looks hardly more than just grown up, when he talks and laughs like that,” was her inward reflection. It seemed as though he had dropped the burden that had been so heavy all these years, and, in this hour of friendliness, had gone back to the boyhood he had cast from him.

He was pointing out to her the wide, dry lands of Broken Bow Valley, which, with irrigation, were some day to be orchards and meadows and rich farming land instead of a broad waste, polka-dotted with sage-brush. At some length he told of the difficulty in getting the irrigation project started, of how long it had taken to form a company and to get construction under way. But of one thing he did not speak, of the interruption in the work, of the threatened strike and the disappearance of the company’s funds. Beatrice waited, hoping that he would let fall some explanation, throw some light on that mystery, and refute forever the dismaying suspicions of Dabney Mills. Of that phase of the matter, however, he said no single word.

“When it is all finished and the valley is prosperous,” he said, “you must be careful when sharp traders try to buy your cabin from you, or make bids for your big pines. You must not part with them at once.”

“I think I could never part with them,” she assured him. “I did not know how much I could learn to love the woods and the cabin and the mountains.”

He sat for a little while, looking across to where the shadows of clouds moved, one by one, across the dark slopes of the range opposite.

“They are friendly things, these mountains,” he observed. “They stand by you when you are in trouble, somehow, they are so big and calm and untroubled themselves.”

Their friendship and confidence had brought them so close together that Beatrice felt suddenly the thrill of a bold impulse. She cast aside Dr. Minturn’s advice to let John Herrick make the first move toward reconciliation. It did not occur to her that the man beside her might be talking so freely only because he meant so soon to close his friendship to her forever. She reflected only on how triumphant she would be when her management had brought the whole misunderstanding to a happy end. Yet she did not dare speak out at once.

“Only think,” she began suddenly, “that you and I might be lunching at—at the Manhattan together if things had been a little different.”

“Yes.” She was greatly encouraged by his immediate assent. He looked at his gray flannel shirt and at her patched riding skirt and went on. “We wouldn’t be dressed just as we are now, would we? And there would be music, instead of the sound of a stream, and a hundred voices talking all at once, instead of those two magpies chattering in the thicket. The fat lady at the next table—there always is one—might be wearing a beaver scarf made from the jacket of some furry little fellow that swam in that very pool below us, and the waiter might tell us that there was an unusual delicacy to-day—rainbow trout.”

She leaned forward, feeling bolder still.

“You haven’t forgotten,” she said, “and you will be coming back to it all some day. We know who you are. We want so much to have you belong to us again. Aren’t you coming back?”

“You know?”

He stood up suddenly and faced her. In that instant she knew that she had done wrong. The shadow of unforgettable pain swept over his face and the laughter died in his eyes.

“You know?” he repeated.

She did not trust herself to speak or even to look at him. Mutely she nodded keeping her wide, unseeing eyes on the fire, clenching her hands, holding her breath and waiting. There was a long, long pause.

He moved at last, strode to the fire and trod out the flames and the smouldering coals with his big boots.

“It is time we were going on,” he said. “You must reach Dr. Minturn’s before dark and I have none too much daylight left to climb my own trail.”

Helplessly she stood watching while he caught the horses and saddled them. The black one yielded quietly enough, but Buck, according to his usual habit, filled the whole rock-walled space with his plunging and rearing, a small but spirited sample of the Wild West. He had to yield at last, however and was led to where his mistress was waiting. John Herrick’s hat was off and his fair hair was ruffled by the wind and by his struggles with the reluctant pony. Beatrice noticed as never before how like he was to Aunt Anna. Since she had done so much harm already, she felt she might make one more effort.

“Aren’t you coming back?” she questioned desperately.

“No,” he answered, “I am never coming back.”

He swung into the saddle and, with a great rattling of stones dislodged by the pony’s hoofs, he was off up the steep trail. It might have been that he looked back, once, to see a bright-haired girl hide her face in her arm and bow her head against the rock, while a white-nosed pony nuzzled her shoulder in vain effort to offer comfort. But if John Herrick looked back he paid no heed.