And while her mind was thus thronged the morning hours passed
swiftly, the miles of foot-hills were climbed and descended. A green
gap of canon, wild and yellow-walled, yawned before her, opening
into the mountain.
Kells halted on the grassy bank of a shallow brook. "Get down. We'll
noon here and rest the horses," he said to Joan. "I can't say that
you're anything but game. We've done perhaps twenty-five miles this
morning."
The mouth of this canon was a wild, green-flowered, beautiful place.
There were willows and alders and aspens along the brook. The green
bench was like a grassy meadow. Joan caught a glimpse of a brown
object, a deer or bear, stealing away through spruce-trees on the
slope. She dismounted, aware now that her legs ached and it was
comfortable to stretch them. Looking backward across the valley
toward the last foot-hill, she saw the other men, with horses and
packs, coming. She had a habit of close observation, and she thought
that either the men with the packs had now one more horse than she
remembered, or else she had not seen the extra one. Her attention
shifted then. She watched Kells unsaddle the horses. He was wiry,
muscular, quick with his hands. The big, blue-cylindered gun swung
in front of him. That gun had a queer kind of attraction for her.
The curved black butt made her think of a sharp grip of hand upon
it. Kells did not hobble the horses. He slapped his bay on the
haunch and drove him down toward the brook. Joan's pony followed.
They drank, cracked the stones, climbed the other bank, and began to
roll in the grass. Then the other men with the packs trotted up.
Joan was glad. She had not thought of it before, but now she felt
she would rather not be alone with Kells. She remarked then that
there was no extra horse in the bunch. It seemed strange, her
thinking that, and she imagined she was not clear-headed.
"Throw the packs, Bill," said Kells.
Another fire was kindled and preparations made toward a noonday
meal. Bill and Halloway appeared loquacious, and inclined to steal
glances at Joan when Kells could not notice. Halloway whistled a
Dixie tune. Then Bill took advantage of the absence of Kells, who
went down to the brook, and he began to leer at Joan and make bold
eyes at her. Joan appeared not to notice him, and thereafter
averted; her gaze. The men chuckled.
"She's the proud hussy! But she ain't foolin' me. I've knowed a heap
of wimmen." Whereupon Halloway guffawed, and between them, in lower
tones, they exchanged mysterious remarks. Kells returned with a
bucket of water.