Jeff rode beside her, answering in monosyllables. The road now climbed a wood of tall oaks, rock-pines, and spruces, through which the sunlight filtered uncertainly, dappling fern and moss with vagrant amber. Somewhere near them a stream gushed among the rocks and a breeze crooned in the boughs. Rita Cheyne stopped talking and listened for she knew not what. There was mystery here—the voice of the primeval, calling to her down the ages. She glanced at Jeff, who sat loosely on his horse, his gaze on the trail. She had believed he shared her own emotions, but she knew by the look in his eyes that his thoughts were elsewhere. She spoke so suddenly that he looked up, startled.
"Why don’t you say something? This place makes me think about Time and Death—the two things I most abhor. Come, let’s get out of here."
Apache sprang forward up the trail at the bidding of his mistress, whose small heels pressed his flanks, again and again, as she urged him on and out into the afternoon sunlight beyond, while Jeff thundered after. He caught her at the top of a sand-ridge half a mile away, where they pulled their horses down to a walk.
"What was the matter?" said Jeff. "You rode as if the Devil was after you."
"Oh, no—I’m not afraid of the Devil. It’s the mystery of the Infinite. That wood—why don’t the dead oak-branches fall? They look like gibbets. Ugh!" She shuddered and laughed. "Didn’t you feel it?"
"No. I camped there once when I was prospecting. That stream you jumped was Dead Man’s Creek."
"He must be there yet, the dead man. It was like a tomb. Who was he?"
"A soldier. He deserted from Fort Garland and was killed by some Mexicans. They buried him under a pile of stones."
"What a disagreeable place. It’s like a cemetery for dead hopes. I won’t go back; you’ll have to take me around some other way."
"I’m afraid of melancholy—I hate unhappiness. I was born to be amused—I _won’t_ be unhappy," she said almost fiercely. "Why should I be? I have everything in the world that most people want. If I see anything I want and haven’t got, I go and get it."
She shrugged. "So people say. I do as I please. I always have and always will. You were surprised to see me here. I told you why I came. I wanted to see you. You were the only person in New York who did not bore me to extinction. If it gives me pleasure to be here, this is the place where I ought to be. That’s logical, isn’t it?"