Bill eventually gave over trying to talk. But he lost none of
his cheerfulness. He lay on his own side of the fire, regarding her
with the amused tolerance that one bestows upon the capricious temper
of a spoiled child.
Thereafter, day by day, the miles unrolled behind them. Always Roaring
Bill faced straight north. For a week he kept on tirelessly, and a
consuming desire to know how far he intended to go began to take hold
of her. But she would not ask, even when daily association dulled the
edge of her resentment, and she found it hard to keep up her hostile
attitude, to nurse bitterness against a man who remained serenely
unperturbed, and who, for all his apparent lawlessness, treated her as
a man might treat his sister.
To her unpracticed eye, the character of the country remained unchanged
except for minor variations. Everywhere the timber stood in serried
ranks, spotted with lakes and small meadows, and threaded here and
there with little streams. But at last they dropped into a valley
where the woods thinned out, and down the center of which flowed a
sizable river. This they followed north a matter of three days. On
the west the valley wall ran to a timbered ridge.
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