Cleve steadied Joan in her saddle, and stood a moment beside her,
holding her hands. The darkness seemed clearing before her eyes and
the sick pain within her seemed numbing out.
"Brace up! Hang--to your saddle!" Jim was saying, earnestly. "Any
moment some of the other bandits might come. ... You lead the way.
I'll follow and drive the pack-horse."
"But, Jim, I'll never be able to find the back-trail," said Joan.
"I think you will. You'll remember every yard of the trail on which
you were brought in here. You won't realize that till you see."
Joan started and did not look back. Cabin Gulch was like a place in
a dream. It was a relief when she rode out into the broad valley.
The grazing horses lifted their heads to whistle. Joan saw the
clumps of bushes and the flowers, the waving grass, but never as she
had seen them before. How strange that she knew exactly which way to
turn, to head, to cross! She trotted her horse so fast that Jim
called to say he could not drive a pack-animal and keep to her gait.
Every rod of the trail lessened a burden. Behind was something
hideous and incomprehensible and terrible; before beckoned something
beginning to seem bright. And it was not the ruddy, calm sunset,
flooding the hills with color. That something called from beyond the
hills.
She led straight to a camp-site she remembered long before she came
to it; and the charred logs of the fire, the rocks, the tree under
which she had lain--all brought back the emotions she had felt
there. She grew afraid of the twilight, and when night settled down
there were phantoms stalking in the shadows. When Cleve, in his
hurried camp duties, went out of her sight, she wanted to cry out to
him, but had not the voice; and when he was close still she trembled
and was cold. He wrapped blankets round her and held her in his
arms, yet the numb chill and the dark clamp of mind remained with
her. Long she lay awake. The stars were pitiless. When she shut her
eyes the blackness seemed unendurable. She slept, to wake out of
nightmare, and she dared sleep no more. At last the day came.
For Joan that faint trail seemed a broad road, blazoned through the
wild canons and up the rocky fastness and through the thick brakes.
She led on and on and up and down, never at fault, with familiar
landmarks near and far. Cleve hung close to her, and now his call to
her or to the pack-horse took on a keener note. Every rough and wild
mile behind them meant so much. They did not halt at the noon hour.
They did not halt at the next camp-site, still more darkly memorable
to Joan. And sunset found them miles farther on, down on the divide,
at the head of Lost Canon.