"Some chaps from Coloma, packing off into the woods."

"Swen Brodie?" she demanded.

"Yes. Swen Brodie and half a dozen of his ilk."

"We will overtake them? Is that why you are in a hurry now?"

"No. We won't see anything of them. That's what I went to find out. We are within a few hundred yards of the fork in the trail; they turned off to the right, as I thought they would."

"You would like to follow after them?" She gathered that from a vague something in his voice and from a look, not so vague, in his eyes. "If I were not along you would go the way they have gone?"

"Yes," he admitted. "But you are along, you know! What is more,"--as he realized that she might fear he resented her being with him,--"I am glad that you are. And now shall we start? We've a long ride ahead of us yet."

She followed him down through the alders; at the pool where she had slipped before, and he had held her in his arms, she was very careful not to slip now. Nor did they look at each other while she lightly touched his hand and they crossed over. For an hour, until the wilderness worked its green magic upon them again, they were a very silent man and girl, he pondering on Brodie and his men pushing on into the solitudes, she wondering many things about her companion--and about herself.

_Chapter VIII_

Through the long shadows of evening they rode back to the log house.

While King unsaddled, Gloria stood watching him; her eyes shone softly through the dusk.

"It has been a truly wonderful day," she said simply.

"It is you who have been wonderful," he answered stoutly. "I know you are not used to long rides like ours to-day; I know you are tired out.

And you never gave a sign."

"The blood of my ancestors," she laughed happily.

In the house Gratton looked at them sharply and suspiciously; Archie and Teddy saw only Gloria through sorrowful eyes. King, with a nod to the various guests and a few words with Mrs. Gaynor, entirely given to warm praise of her daughter, drew Ben aside for a discussion of conditions as he had found them and left them to-day. He was dead sure that Brodie had gone back to Honeycutt, had gotten what he wanted, and was off in a bee-line to put to the proof the old man's tale.

Gloria was off to bed early, saying "good-night everybody" rather absently. She climbed up the stairs wearily. When her mother slipped away from the others, having started the victrola and urged them to dancing, she found Gloria ready for bed but standing before her window, looking out at the first stars. Mrs. Gaynor discovered in her little daughter a new, grave-eyed uncommunicativeness. Gloria usually had so many bright, gushing things to say after a day of pleasure, but to-night she appeared oddly preoccupied.

"Oh, I'm dead tired, mamma," she said impatiently. "Nothing happened.

I'll tell you to-morrow--anything I can think of. And now, good-night; I'm so sleepy." She kissed her mother and added: "I didn't tell Mark good-night--"

"_Mark_? Already, my dear?"

"He was outside with papa," said Gloria, slipping into bed. "Will you tell him good-night for me?"

"He's gone," retorted her mother, with a certain relish.

"Gone!" Gloria sat up, a very pretty picture of consternation. "Where?"

"Back into the woods. Where he came from, of course. I actually think,"

and she laughed deprecatingly though with a shrewd watchful look to mark her daughter's quick play of expression, "that that man couldn't sleep two consecutive nights under a roof. His clothes smell like a pine-tree.

He wouldn't understand us any more than we could understand him, I suppose."

Gloria was silent and thoughtful. Then, "Good-night, mamma," she offered again, her cheek snuggled against her pillow. "And put out the light as you go, please."

Mrs. Gaynor, accepting her dismissal though reluctantly, sighed and went out. As the door closed Gloria tossed back the covers and sprang out of bed, going again to her window. She watched the mountain ridges turn blacker and blacker; saw a second star and another and suddenly the heavens filled with a softly glimmering spray of twinkling lights; she heard the night wind rustling, tender with vague voices. A tiny shiver shook the white shoulders, a shiver not from cold, since not yet had the air chilled. Through her mind swept a dozen vivid pictures, all of King, most of them of him out there, alone with the night and the mountains.

But she saw him also as she had seen him to-day; riding before her, breaking the alders aside, catching her as she fell. All day she had thrilled to him. Now, more than ever, she thrilled. She imagined she saw him striding along through the big boles of the pines; pa.s.sing swiftly, silent and stern, through a faint patch of light; standing in the shadows, listening, his keen eyes drilling the obscurity; pa.s.sing on again, vigorous, forceful, determined, and "splendid." She wondered if he would come up with Swen Brodie; most of all she wondered when she would see him again.

In all likelihood Miss Gloria, healthy, tired young animal, would have slept until noon next day had she been left to her own devices. But at nine o'clock her mother came up with a breakfast-tray. Gloria regarded it sleepily.

"I would have let you sleep, my dear," said Mrs. Gaynor, "but there are your guests, you know----"

"Hang my guests," was Gloria's morning greeting. "Just because I invited them up here do I have to give up every shred of my independence?" She was lying in identically the same position in which she had dropped off to sleep the night before; now she turned and emitted a sudden "Ouch!"

Not only was she stiff from head to foot; her whole body ached as though it were nothing but bruises.

So began Gloria's day after her picnicking with Mark King. And in very much the same way her day continued. Long before the sun set she had quarrelled with Georgia, turned up her nose at Teddy, laughed derisively at poor Archie's dog-like devotion, and considerably perplexed and worried Mr. Gratton, who was astute enough to keep tactfully in the background, hurt her mother's feelings, and alarmed her father by a wild and for the instant perfectly heartfelt determination to go and be a "movie" actress. There was no dancing that night. Gloria, when they thought her upstairs, sat alone out in the gloaming, a wistful, drooping little girl surrendering sweepingly to youthful melancholia. She didn't know just what the matter was; she didn't seek for reasons and explanations; she merely stared at the far-off stars which swam in a blue blur, and felt miserable.

But morning came again, as bright as that first day in Eden; the birds sang and the air was crisp, and young blood ran pleasantly. She came down early, all radiant smiles; she kissed her mother on both cheeks and the lips, rumpled her father's hair affectionately, went for a stroll with Mr. Gratton before breakfast, craved Georgia's pardon abjectly, and made the world an abiding-place of joy for the college boys.

Gloria was mildly surprised that Gratton did not appear in the least to resent her day of adventuring with King. He was interested; he did shake his head with one of his suave smiles and murmur "Lucky dog!" when King was referred to. But his interest seemed to be chiefly in "that quaint little relic of past, turbulent days, Coloma." He had her tell him all about it; of the deserted houses, the store, everything. Hence his curiosity in Honeycutt and Brodie, and just what happened between King and them, did not stand out alone and made no impression on Gloria. Long ago Gratton had had from her lips what rumours had been repeated by her father to her mother and then relayed on to her own ears. Down in San Francisco, busied with her own youthful joys, this quest of Ben Gaynor and Mark King had had no serious import to the girl; she had merely chatted of it because of its colourful phases. Naturally, had she thought a great deal of it, she would have supposed that Gratton, in nowise concerned, was even more superficially interested than herself.

By the end of the week her guests began taking their leaves. Georgia and Connie Grayson were off to foregather with a crowd of friends at the Lake Tahoe "Tavern"; Evelyn returned to her mother in Oakland; Archie departed importantly to aid his father "in the business"; Teddy went away regretfully. Even Mr. Gratton, having lingered longest of all, went back to his city affairs, promising to run up again when he could, prophesying smilingly that he would see both Gloria and her mother in town within ten days. Ben, leaving his oldest and most dependable timber-jack to look out for the womenfolk, hastened back to the lumber-camp, where he returned like a fish to water to his old pipe and old clothes and roomy boots. And Gloria was plunged deep into loneliness.

She would walk up the creek back of the house, sit by the hour near the pool where the water came slithering down over a green and grey boulder, watching for the water-ouzel, entertained in an absent sort of way by his bobbings and flirtings and s.n.a.t.c.hes of song. She dreamed day-dreams; she started expectantly every time a chipmunk made a scurrying racket in dead leaves. She made a hundred romantic conclusions to the story, just begun, by Mark King going in the night into the mountains where Brodie was. Her mind was rife with speculation, having ample food for thought in all the information she had extracted from her father. Thus, she knew of Andy Parker's death; of old Honeycutt's box; of Honeycutt's boastings of a wild youth; of Brodie's threats and King's interference and the old man's shotgun. If she could only _know_ what was happening now out there beyond those silent blue barriers! Night after night she stood at her window, swayed through many swift moods by her live fancies.

She grew wildly homesick for town. A theatre, dance, a ride through the park. Activity. And people. It was for her mother that she consented to remain here another week. Mrs. Gaynor declared that she must have a few more days of rest; she was worn out from a year of going eternally, entertaining or being entertained. Gloria, yielding, plunged into an orgy of letter-writing. She answered letters weeks old; she scribbled countless bright and unnecessary notes. Also she succeeded in getting her mother to drive with her frequently to Tahoe, to call on those of their friends there who had come to the mountains so early in the season. Several times they remained overnight at the Tavern.

It was after one of these absences that Jim Spalding, the old timber-jack, told Mrs. Gaynor in his abashed stammer that Mark King had showed up while they were gone. Gloria, on her way to her room, whirled and came back, and extracted the tale in its entirety, pumping it out of the brief, few-worded old Spalding in jerky details. King had appeared late yesterday afternoon, coming out of the woods. Looked like he'd been roughin' it an' goin' it hard, at that. Had told Jim he wanted to telephone. Had stuck around for a while gettin' his call through; had eaten supper with Jim; had gone back into the woods just about dark.

That was all Jim knowed about it.

Rather, that was all that he supposed he knew until Miss Gloria was done with him. She dragged other bits of information to the surface.

King had phoned her father; they had talked ten minutes; Mr. Gaynor was to telephone to the log house again to-morrow or next day. There would be a message for King; mos' likely from Coloma. King wanted to know something; Ben was to find out; King would turn up within a few days for the message.

Mrs. Gaynor that same day said to her daughter in a way so casual that Gloria immediately was on the alert:

"You've been very sweet to stay up here in this lonely place with me, dear. I am ready to go at any time now. Shall we go to-morrow?"

"Mother thinks she is so deep!" was Gloria's unspoken comment.

"We've such a lot of packing to do," said Gloria, with an a.s.sumption of carelessness far more artistic than her mother's. "And I'm as sleepy and lazy as an owl after being up so late last night." Her yawn, softly patted by four pink-and-white fingers, was as ingenuous as a kitten's.

"I'm really in no hurry, mamma. To-morrow, if we're ready. Or next day."

They were still in the log house when, twenty-four hours later, the telephone rang, and Gloria, quick to forestall her mother, heard the operator saying: "Coloma calling Ben Gaynor's residence."

"Coloma!" thought Gloria with a quickened heartbeat. Then it wouldn't be her father, after all; it would be Mark King----

But her father it was, and she was disappointed. The message, however, was for King.

"Mark will show up in a day or so," he said. "Tell him that I did as he asked; that Brodie is in and out from here, the Lord knows what about; that old Honeycutt boasts that what he has hidden n.o.body is going to find. I think if he ever talks to anybody it will be to me, and I'll run in and see him whenever I get a chance to get over here. And tell King that--that----Oh, I guess that's all; better let me have a word with your mother."

Ben Gaynor was never the man for successful subterfuge, especially with his daughter; she could read every look in his eye, every twitch of his mouth, and now, over many miles of country telephone lines, she knew that her beloved old humbug of a male parent was "holding out on her."