re patient, run to the horse when
Al's back was turned, she thought. Once in the woods she might have
some chance of eluding him, and perhaps Skinner would show as much
wisdom going as he had in coming, and take her down to the sageland.

But Skinner walked to the farther edge of the meadow before he stopped,
and Al Woodruff never turned his back to a foe. An owl hooted
unexpectedly, and Lorraine edged closer to her captor, who was
gathering dead branches one by one and throwing them toward a certain
spot which he had evidently selected for a campfire. He looked at her
keenly, even suspiciously, and pointed with the stick in his left hand.

"You might go over there by the saddle and set down till I get a fire
going," he said. "Don't go wandering around aimless, like a hen
turkey, watching a chance to duck into the brush. There's bear in
there and lion and lynx, and I'd hate to see you chawed. They never
clean their toe-nails, and blood poison generally sets in where they
leave a scratch. Go and set down."

Lorraine did not know how much of his talk was truth, but she went and
sat down by his saddle and began braiding her hair in two tight braids
like a squaw. If she did get a chance to run, she thought, she did not
want her hair flying loose to catch on bushes and briars. She had once
fled through a brush patch in Griffith Park with her hair flowing
loose, and she had not liked the experience, though it had looked very
nice on the screen.

Before she had finished the braiding, Al came over to the saddle and
untied his slicker roll and the grouse.

"Come on over to the fire," he said. "I'll learn yuh a trick or two
about camp cooking. If I'm goin' to keep yuh with me, you might just
as well learn how to cook. We'll be on the trail the biggest part of
our time, I expect."

He took her by the arm, just as any man might have done, and led her to
the fire that was beginning to crackle cheerfully. He set her down on
the side where the smoke would be least likely to blow her way and
proceeded to dress the grouse, stripping off skin and feathers
together. He unrolled the slicker and laid out a piece of bacon, a
package of coffee, a small coffeepot, bannock and salt. The coffeepot
and the grouse he took in one hand--his left, Lorraine observed--and
started toward the spring which she could hear gurgling in the shadows
amongst the trees.

Lorraine watched him sidelong. He seemed to take it for granted now