Chapter 29
Not that she stayed there without a growing fear, but she still
felt about her, like the protection of some invisible cloak, the
presence of the strange guide who had followed her up the valley of
the Old Crow.
It seemed as if the boy were reading her mind.
"See you got two horses. Come up alone?"
"Most of the way," said Mary, and tingled with a rather feline
pleasure to see that her curtness merely sharpened the interest of
Jack.
The boy puffed on his cigarette, not with long, slow breaths of
inhalation like a practiced smoker, but with a puckered face as
though he feared that the fumes might drift into his eyes.
"Why," thought Mary, "he's only a child!"
Her heart warmed a little as she adopted this view of her surly
host. Being warmed, and having much to say, wo
