g day; it was now the
yellow time of the slant afternoon sunlight; between these two points
there had been a body of steady plodding. The girl had looked askance at
that gaunt form of Donnegan's when they began; but before three hours,
seeing that the spring never left his step nor the swinging rhythm his
stride, she began to wonder. This afternoon, nothing he did could have
surprised her. From the moment he entered the house the night before he
had been a mystery. Till her death day she would not forget the fire
with which he had stared up at her from the foot of the stairs. But when
he came out of her father's room--not cowed and whipped as most men left
it--he had looked at her with a veiled glance, and since that moment
there had always been a mist of indifference over his eyes when he
looked at her.

In the beginning of that day's march all she knew was that her father
trusted her to this stranger, Donnegan, to take her to The Corner, where
he was to find Jack Landis and bring Jack back to his old allegiance and
find what he was doing with his time and his money. It was a quite
natural proceeding, for Jack was a wild sort, and he was probably
gambling away all the gold that was dug in his mines. It was perfectly
natural throughout, except that she should have been trusted so entirely
to a stranger. That was a remarkable thing, but, then, her father was a
remarkable man, and it was not the first time that his actions had been
inscrutable, whether concerning her or the affairs of other people. She
had heard men come into their house cursing Colonel Macon with death in
their faces; she had seen them sneak out after a soft-voiced interview
and never appear again. In her eyes, her father was invincible,
all-powerful. When she thought of superlatives, she thought of him. Her
conception of mystery was the smile of the colonel, and her conception
of tenderness was bounded by the gentle voice of the same man.
Therefore, it was entirely sufficient to her that the colonel had said:
"Go, and trust everything to Donnegan. He has the power to command you
and you must obey--until Jack comes back to you."

That was odd, for, as far as she knew, Jack had never left her. But she
had early discarded any will to question her father. Curiosity was a
thing which the fat man hated above all else.

Therefore, it was really not strange to her that throughout the journey
her guide did not speak half a dozen words to her. Once or twice whe