His eyes opened in surprise.

“I didn’t get off to look at my horse’s foot.  And he didn’t pick up anything.”

“The second time,” she continued, “was just when you had come to the last stream.  I thought that you were going to turn off into the canon.  I saw that your horse was limping.”

He shook his head.  She must have seen that other fellow whose tracks Thornton had for so long seen following the tracks of her pony.

“What made you think you recognized me?” he asked.

“I didn’t think.  I knew.”

“Then ... how did you know?”

The surprise showing in her frankly lifted brows was very plain now.

“You were hardly five hundred yards away,” she retorted.  “And,” with a quick, sweeping survey of him, “you are not a man to be readily mistaken even at that distance, you know.”

“Meaning the inches of me?  The up-and-down six feet four of me?” He shook his head.  “I’m the only man in this neck of the woods built on the bean pole style.”

“Meaning,” she returned steadily, “your size and form; meaning the unusually wide hat you wear; meaning your blue shirt and grey neck-handkerchief ... grey handkerchiefs aren’t so common, are they?... meaning your tall sorrel horse that limped, and your bridle with the red tassel swinging from the headstall!  Now,” a little sharply, a little anxiously, he thought, “you are not going to tell me that I was mistaken, are you?”

She saw that his surprise, growing into sheer amazement as she ran on, was a wonderfully simulated thing if it were not real.

“You made a mistake,” he said coolly.  “I saw in the trail that there was another man following you.  If I had known his get-up was so close to mine, I’d have done a little fast riding to take a peep at him.  He turned off at the last creek, as you thought.”

“You saw him?” she asked quickly.

“I saw his tracks.  And,” he added with deep thoughtfulness as he stared past her into the smouldering fire in the fireplace, “I’d sure like to know who he is.”

Again, as she watched him, an expression of uneasiness crept into her eyes; then as he turned back to her she looked down quickly.

“Is it far to the Wendell place?” she asked abruptly.  “Where the sick woman is?”

“Ten miles.  Off to the north.”

“Not on our trail?” anxiously.

“You’re going on, further?”

“Yes.  To ...” she hesitated, and then concluded hurriedly, “To Hill’s Corners.”

He sat silent for a moment, his strong brown fingers playing with his knife and fork.  And his eyes were merely stern when he spoke quietly.

“So you’re going to Dead Man’s Alley, are you?”

“I said that I was going to Hill’s Corners!”

“And folks who know that quiet little city,” he informed her, “have got into the habit of calling it by the name of its principal street....  I wonder if you’ve ever been there?”