Page:Edison Marshall--The voice of the pack.djvu/74

56 "Good Lord—does she travel over these hills in the darkness?"

The mountaineer laughed—a delighted sound that came somewhat curiously from the bearded lips of the stern, dark man. "Dan, I 'll swear she's afraid of nothing that walks the face of the earth—and it is n't because she has n't had experiences either. She's a dead shot with a pistol, for one thing. She's physically strong, and every muscle is hard as nails. She used to have Shag, too—the best dog in all these mountains. She's a mountain girl, I tell you; whoever wins her has got to be able to tame her!" The mountaineer laughed again. "I sent her to school, of course, but there was only one boy she'd look at—the athletic coach! And it was n't his fault that he did n't follow her back to the mountains."

The call to supper came then, and Dan got his first sight of mountain food. There were potatoes, newly dug, mountain vegetables that were crisp and cold, a steak of peculiar shape, and a great bowl of purple berries to be eaten with sugar and cream. Dan's appetite was not as a rule particularly good. But evidently the long ride had affected him. He simply did n't have the moral courage to refuse when the elder Lennox heaped his plate.

"Good Heavens, I can't eat all that," he