But no geniality appeased Maria Angelina's deepening sense of foreboding.
She quickened her steps after him as he strode on ahead, gallantly holding back brambles for her and helping her scramble over fallen logs, and she assented, with the eagerness of anxiety, when he announced a place as safe for crossing.
It was at the head of a mild rush of rapids, and an outcropping of large rocks made possible, though slippery, stepping-stones.
But Ri-Ri's heelless shoes were rubber soled, and she was both fearless and alert. And though the last leap was too long for her, for she landed in the shallows with splashing ankles, she had scarcely a down glance for them. Her worried eyes were searching the green uplands before them.
Secretly she was troubled at Johnny's instant choice of way. Her own instinct was to go back along the river and then strike in towards old Baldy, but men, she knew from Papa, did not like objections to their wisdom, so she reminded herself that she was a stranger and ignorant of this country and that Johnny Byrd knew his mountains.
He told her, as they went along, how well he knew them.
"Should we not wind back a little?" she ventured once.
"Oh, we're on another path--we'll dip back and meet the other path a little higher up," the young man told her.
But still the path did not dip back. It reached straight up. But Johnny would not abandon it. He seemed to feel it inextricably united with his own rightness of decision, and since he was inevitably right, so inevitably the path must disclose its desired character.
But once or twice he paused and looked out over the way. Then, hopefully, Ri-Ri hung upon his expression, longing for reconsideration. But he never faltered, always on her approach he charged ahead again.
No holding back of brambles, now. No helping over logs. Johnny was the pathfinder, oblivious, intent, and Ri-Ri, the pioneer woman, enduring as best she might.
Up he drove, straight up the mountain side, and after him scrambled the girl, her fears voiceless in her throat, her heart pounding with exertion and anxiety like a ship's engine in her side.
Time seemed interminable. There was no sun now. The gray and white clouds were spread thinly over the sky and only a diffused brightness gave the suggestion of the west.