An odd sense of being in some way a prisoner confronted
her. She drew back with an impatient start, and perhaps her first real
sense of indignation. A voice behind her, which she at once recognized,
scarcely restored her calmness.
"You can't get across there, miss."
She turned. It was the young inventor from the wheat ranch, on horseback
and with a clean face. He had just ridden out of the grain on the same
side of the chasm as herself.
"But you seem to have got over," she said bluntly.
"Yes, but it was further up the field. I reckoned that the split might
be deeper but not so broad in the rock outcrop over there than in the
adobe here. I found it so and jumped it."
He looked as if he might--alert, intelligent, and self-contained. He
lingered a moment, and then continued:--
"I'm afraid you must have been badly shaken and a little frightened up
there before the chimneys came down?"
"No," she was glad to say briefly, and she believed truthfully, "I wasn't
frightened.
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