"You sneak!" she cried. "And all the time I thought you and Mrs.
Orcutt were my friends! And all the time you were lying in wait to
ruin an old man! You couldn't fight him in the open! You were afraid!
But my father is used to fighting men--not cowardly thieves! And as
for riding in one of your trucks, I would die first!" She turned to
McNabb. "Come on, Dad, we'll walk!"
"But, daughter, it's a hundred miles!"
"I don't care if it is five hundred miles! I'll walk, or crawl if I
have to, rather than accept anything from that--that rattlesnake! See,
there is a little store. We can lay in some provisions for the trip
and it will be loads of fun. It will remind you of your old days in
the North."
The girl took his arm, and the two turned abruptly away, leaving Orcutt
standing in his tracks watching their departure with somewhat of a grin.
As they came out of the store with bulging pack sacks, they saw him
step into the stuffy coach, and a moment later they watched the wheezy
little engine puff importantly down the track. Then, side by side they
stepped onto the tote-road and were swallowed up between the two walls
of towering balsams and spruces.
A mile farther on, a Eureka truck passed them, and the girl, scorning
the driver's offer of a lift, brushed its dust from her clothing as
though it were the touch of some loathsome thing.
That night they camped on a little hardwood knoll beside a stream, well
back from the road.
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