Mrs. Belden,
detecting some restraint in Berrie's tone, renewed her questioning:
"Where did you camp last night?"

"Right here."

"I don't see how the horses got away. There's a pasture here, for we rode
right through it."

Berrie was aware that each moment of delay in explaining the situation
looked like evasion, and deepened the significance of her predicament,
and yet she could not bring herself to the task of minutely accounting
for her time during the last two days.

Belden came to her relief. "Well, well! We'll have to be moving on. We're
going into camp at the mouth of the West Fork," he said, as he rose.
"Tell Tony and the Supervisor that we want to line out that timber at the
earliest possible moment."

Siona, who was now distinctly coquetting with Wayland, held out her hand.
"I hope you'll find time to come up and see us. I know we have other
mutual friends, if we had time to get at them."

His answer was humorous. "I am a soldier. I am on duty. I'm not at all
sure that I shall have a moment's leave; but I will call if I can
possibly do so."

They started off at last without having learned in detail anything of the
intimate relationship into which the Supervisor's daughter and young
Norcross had been thrown, and Mrs. Belden was still so much in the dark
that she called to Berrie: "I'm going to send word to Cliff that you are
over here. He'll be crazy to come the minute he finds it out."

"Don't do that!" protested Berrie.

Wayland turned to Berrie. "That would be pleasant," he said, smilingly.

But she did not return his smile. On the contrary, she remained very
grave. "I wish that old tale-bearer had kept away. She's going to make
trouble for us all. And that girl, isn't she a spectacle? I never could
bear her."

"Why, what's wrong with her? She seems a very nice, sprightly person."

"She's a regular play actor. I don't like made-up people. Why does she go
around with her sleeves rolled up that way, and--and her dress open at
the throat?"

"Oh, those are the affectations of the moment. She wants to look tough
and boisterous. That's the fad with all the girls, just now. It's only a
harmless piece of foolishness."

She could not tell him how deeply she resented his ready tone of
camaraderie with the other girl; but she was secretly suffering. It hurt
her to think that he could forget his aches and be so free and easy with
a stranger at a moment's notice. Under the influence of that girl's smil