He turned.  A few steps from him stood Joanne Gray.  Her face was as white as the bit of lace at her throat.  Her lips were colourless, and her bosom rose and fell swiftly.  He knew that she, too, had witnessed the tragedy.  And the eyes that looked at him were glorious.

CHAPTER IV

To John Aldous Joanne’s appearance at this moment was like an anti-climax.  It plunged him headlong for a single moment into what he believed to be the absurdity of a situation.  He had a quick mental picture of himself out on the dead spruce, performing a bit of mock-heroism by dragging in a half-drowned colt by one ear.  In another instant this had passed, and he was wondering why Joanne Gray was not on her way to Tete Jaune.

“It was splendid!” she was saying again, her eyes glowing at him.  “I know men who would not have risked that for a human!”

“Perhaps they would have been showing good judgment,” replied Aldous.

He noticed now that she was holding with one hand the end of a long slender sapling which a week or two before he had cut and trimmed for a fish-pole.  He nodded toward it, a half-cynical smile on his lips.

“Were you going to fish me out—­or the colt?” he asked.

“You,” she replied.  “I thought you were in danger.”  And then she added, “I suppose you are deeply grateful that fate did not compel you to be saved by a woman.”

“Not at all.  If the spruce had snapped, I would have caught at the end of your sapling like any drowning rat—­or man.  Allow me to thank you.”

She had stepped down to the level strip of sand on which the colt was weakly struggling to rise to its feet.  She was breathing quickly.  Her face was still pale.  She was without a hat, and as she bent for a moment over the colt Aldous felt his eyes drawn irresistibly to the soft thick coils of her hair, a glory of colour that made him think of the lustrous brown of a ripe wintelberry.  She looked up suddenly and caught his eyes upon her.

“I came quite by accident,” she explained quickly.  “I wanted to be alone, and Mrs. Otto said this path would lead to the river.  When I saw you I was about to turn back.  And then I saw the other—­the horses coming down the stream.  It was terrible.  Are they all drowned?”

“All that you saw.  It wasn’t a pretty sight, was it?” There was a suggestive inquiry in his voice as he added, “If you had gone to Tete Jaune you would have missed the unpleasantness of the spectacle.”

“I would have gone, but something happened.  They say it was a cave-in, a slide—­something like that.  The train cannot go on until to-morrow.”

“And you are to stay with the Ottos?”

She nodded.

Quick as a flash she had seemed to read his thoughts.

“I am sorry,” she added, before he could speak.  “I can see that I have annoyed you.  I have literally projected myself into your work, and I am afraid that I have caused you trouble.  Mrs. Otto has told me of this man they call Quade.  She says he is dangerous.  And I have made him your enemy.”