“The man’s tracks went back towards Taylor Rock,” he drawled out half apologetically.  “That’s what made me kinda think maybe—­”

“Oh, you know that, too!  You know how he said he was going up there and see if he couldn’t run across a bear before sundown, and for me to go straight home.  And I’ll bet,” she added breathlessly, “you can tell me exactly where it was that Kate waited for me across the gulley, and which ankle it was that she sprained so I had to almost carry her back to the house, and—­why, I wouldn’t be one bit surprised if you could tell me what I put on it!”

“No,” Hank confessed feebly, “I guess I couldn’t just figure all that out, not offhand like.”

“But you knew about Fred forgetting his cigarettes, and about my bringing him some so he wouldn’t be grouchy all the way home,” Marion reminded him demurely.  “I—­I do think you are the cleverest boy!”

That finished Hank.  Never within his recollection had a young woman so much as hinted that she thought him wonderful or clever.  Besides, Hank was well past thirty, and it tickles a man of that age to be called a boy.

He began to leer at her with amorous eyes when he spoke, and he began to find frequent occasions for taking hold of her arm.  He managed to make himself odious in the extreme, so that in sheer self-defense Marion made haste to bring his thoughts back to Jack.

“Did you say that lookout man has a claim up here somewhere?” She started back to the road, Hank keeping close to her heels.

“I dunno—­I just said maybe he had.  He’s up here, I know that—­an’ you know it, too.”  He took her arm to help her up the hill, and Marion felt as though a toad was touching her; yet she dared not show too plainly her repulsion for fear of stirring his anger.  She had a feeling that Hank’s anger would be worse than his boorish gallantry.  “I figure he’s on the dodge.  Ain’t no other reason why he ain’t never been to town sence I packed him up to the lookout station las’ spring.  ‘F he had a claim he’d be goin’ to town sometime, anyway.  He’d go in to record his claim, an’ he ain’t never done that.  I’ll bet,” he added, walking close alongside, “you could tell more’n you let on.  Couldn’t you, ay?”

“I could, if I knew anything to tell.”  Marion tried to free her arm without actually jerking it, and failed.

“But you don’t, ay?  Say, you’re pretty cute.  What’ll yuh give me if I tell yuh what I do think?”

The fool was actually trying to slip his arm around her without being too abrupt about it; as if he were taming some creature of the wild which he wished not to frighten.  Marion was drawing herself together, balancing herself to land a blow on his jaw and then run.  She believed she could outrun him, now that they were in the trail.  But at that moment she caught sight of a figure slinking behind a stump, and she exclaimed with relief at the sight.

“Why, there’s Mike over there—­I was wishing—­I wanted to ask him—­oh, Mike!  Mike!” She pulled herself free of Hank’s relaxing fingers and darted from the trail, straight up the park-like slope of the giant pines.  “Mike!  Wait a minute, Mike.  I was looking for you!”