“Please don’t joke about it,” Corliss Adrian said, in a low, throaty voice.

  Hank’s grin was infectious. “Ma’am,” he said, “I’m not joking. That was my answer. S’pose you try and figure out some other way.”

  He included them in a lazy grin and said, “Only about ten minutes to camp,” and swung back around in the saddle. Almost immediately his voice rose in a plaintive melody.

  His ten minutes turned out to be exactly twenty-three minutes, as Marion Chandler noted from her wristwatch. Then they made camp in a grassy meadow, with pines furnishing a welcome shade. The packs came off in record time. The cook had a fire going, and even before the wranglers had finished hobbling the horses and putting a cowbell on the leader, Marion could smell the aroma of cooking.

  James Dewitt came over to stand by her. “You seem to have stood the trip quite well.”

  “It wasn’t bad.”

  “You do quite a bit of riding.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “I don’t know—the way you were sitting on the horse. You seemed to be a part of him. You aren’t tired?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “I’m all in,” he confessed. “Too much weight to pack around. I’m going to get busy and take off twenty or twenty-five pounds. Been threatening to do it for a year. Perhaps this will be a good chance to start.”

  Marion nodded toward the campfire. “Wait until that gets down to coals and you begin to smell the broiling steaks.”

  “Steaks?”

  “That’s what Sammy told me. Steaks the first night out.”

  Dewitt made an exaggerated motion of wiping the back of his hand across his lips. “Guess I’ll start my diet tomorrow,” he said. “So you’re taking pictures?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Have a contract with some magazine?”

  “No, I’m free-lancing.”

  “Rather an expensive trip just for free-lancing, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t think so,” she said coolly.

  “Pardon me.” He grinned. “I’m always sticking my neck out, saying things that happen to crop into my mind. Did you get any pictures along the trail?”

  “No, I’m going to wait a day or two before I do much photography. It’s always better to play it that way. The scenery’s better, and the first day’s journey is usually the longest and the hardest on the stock and the people. Packers don’t like to have you hold up the string the first day out.”

  “You sound like a veteran.”

  She laughed gaily and said, “I’ve been listening to Hank.”

  “But you have been on quite a few camping trips?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  It was plain that Dewitt wanted to ask more questions, but her manner held his curiosity in check.

  Corliss Adrian came over to join them. “Wasn’t it perfectly delightful?” she asked, but her voice was flat with fatigue.

  Hank Lucas, having finished hobbling the horses, pulled a can of fruit juice from one of the kyacks, jabbed a hunting knife through the top of the can, and produced paper cups and a bottle. He mixed the ingredients with haste.

  “Now, this here,” he announced, “is a little mountain tonic. A couple of these has the effect of loosening the sore muscles, removing kinks from the back, and whetting the appetite. How about it, Mr. Dewitt? Want me to get out your fishing tackle so you can catch a few trout before supper?”

  Dewitt grabbed the cocktail. “Gosh, no,” he said. “All I want is to sprawl out and rest. Where are the sleeping bags?”

  Lucas passed the drinks around and tossed off one himself, saying, “Coming right up.” And he promptly proceeded to busy himself getting things unpacked.

  Marion was grateful for the fatigue that permeated the camp, which she knew had interposed a shield between her and what had apparently been a well-planned course of questioning agreed upon in advance. Dewitt had done his part, but Corliss had been too tired to keep up the mental effort.

  As the sun went down in the west, the shadows of the mountains on the other side of the stream marched rapidly toward them. Almost instantly it became cool and, by the time the broiled steaks, potatoes, and salad were on their plates, the sharp tang of the mountain air, plus the effect of the cocktails, had whetted their appetites so that eating was a full-time occupation. And, in an incredibly short time after eating, the food induced a drowsy torpor which made even the most fragmentary conversation a matter of effort.

  The fire crackled cheerfully for a while, then died down, and the circle of darkness which had been waiting just outside the camp moved silently in.

  “I’m going to roll in,” Marion announced. “Good night, everyone.”

  James Dewitt sighed and said, “Good night.” He arose and started for his sleeping bag. His first two steps were staggering, off-balance attempts to keep himself erect as his cramped muscles for the moment refused to work. A moment later Corliss Adrian had rolled in, and Marion, hurriedly disrobing, slid down into her sleeping bag. She looked over at the campfire, where Hank Lucas, Sam Eaton, and Howard Kenney were gathered in a little group silhouetted against the glowing embers.

  She wondered sleepily at the subject of their conference and determined that she would lie awake to watch them, suddenly suspicious of the intense attitude of concentration.

  She doubled the light pillow of her sleeping bag to prop her head up so she could see them more clearly and closed her eyes momentarily when they began to smart, to shut out the light of the campfire. Her consciousness was almost instantly sucked down into an abyss of warm comfort….

  When she wakened there was the feel of dawn in the air. The stars over the tops of the big pines had receded into a sky which was taking on just a faint suggestion of greenish-blue color.

  She knew that it was cold outside because she could feel a tingling at the tip of her nose, but the envelope of the sleeping bag was filled with warm down and she was too comfortable to even move. She lay there in a state halfway between sleeping and waking, listening to the sounds of the purling river and the stir of activity around camp. Time ceased to exist.

  There was color in the pine trees now. The stars had disappeared and the sky had taken on a distinctly bluish tint. She heard the sound of distant shouts, and then the clanging of the bell on the lead horse became suddenly a hysterical clamor. Hoofs pounded and, startled, she raised herself on an elbow, to see the horses coming into camp, driven along by Howard Kenney, who was riding bareback, letting out cowboy yells at intervals. Sleep was effectively banished.

  Marion struggled into her clothes, splashed ice-cold water on her face, and felt that surge of vitality which comes with the dawn when one has been sleeping on the ground in the open.

  With an appetite sharpened by the fresh air, she watched the cook bring flapjacks to a golden brown and put them on her plate together with slices of crisp, meaty bacon. A thick slab of country butter melted to run down the sides of the hot cakes and mingle with the maple syrup. There was clear, strong coffee in a huge agateware cup.

  She ate with zest and then walked down to the edge of the river, where Dewitt was just finishing putting his trout rod together. He had made a few preliminary casts to soften up his leader and now, with a skilled wrist motion, sent a fly winging out in a long cast.

  “Hello,” he said, grinning amiably. “You’re looking mighty fit this morning.” Using his left hand to pull the line through the guides, he brought the fly around the edge of a little ripple, then across a straight stretch of swift current.

  “Feeling like a million dollars,” she said.

  A trout suddenly flashed up out of the water, struck at the fly, missed, and then went sulking down to the depths of the stream.

  “Missed him,” Dewitt said. “I was a little too anxious. Whipped the fly right out of his mouth.”

  Hank Lucas, who had joined them without being observed, said, in his peculiar drawling voice, “No need to get discouraged. There’s lots of ’em in here. If you want to fish an hour or so while we’re getting the packs on, you’ll have more fish than you can carry…. Haven’t seen Mrs. Adrian, have you?”

  Dewitt snapped in the line and made another cast. “No. Is she up?” he asked, his eyes glued to the fly.

  “She’s up, all right. Took a little walk upstream. She hasn’t come back for breakfast.”

  Dewitt said abruptly, “You say she’s gone?”

  “That’s right. Seems to have taken a walk,” Lucas said, “but there aren’t any tracks on the trail. I thought I’d take a look along the stream here, and then I saw you fishing.”

  Lucas strolled more or less aimlessly up the stream edge between the rocks, then said suddenly, “Here’s where she went.”

  Marion had to look twice to see the track. Then it appeared to be only a faint discoloration of the ground. But, some twenty yards farther on, Lucas, who had kept moving on ahead, uncovered another fresh track—this time made in damp sand and distinctly visible.

  Dewitt abruptly lost interest in the fishing and snapped in his line. “Guess I’d better follow her.”

  “Keep on fishing if you want,” Hank said. “I’ll go on up…. Maybe you’d like to take a walk,” he said to Marion, and then added, with a grin, “In case she’s taking a swim, you can go on ahead and tell her she’ll have to hurry if she wants breakfast. We’ve got to get the packs on.”

  Dewitt hesitated. “Really, I should come,” he said.

  “Why?” Hank asked, and then added, “I can probably follow her trail as well as you can.”

  Dewitt grinned. “Oh, well, if you put it that way,” he said.

  He resumed his fishing, and Hank and Marion moved slowly upstream.

  Almost instantly the lazy smile left Hank’s eyes. His manner became tense and businesslike. “Any idea where she might have gone?” he asked.

  “No. I woke up shortly before dawn and then dozed again. I didn’t hear her move.”

  “She was in her sleeping bag when Kenney and I took out after the horses. You haven’t any idea what she might be after?”

  “She might have wanted to bathe.”

  “Water’s pretty cold,” Hank said, and then added abruptly, “You know what she’s in here for?”

  “She wants to find her husband?” Marion ventured.

  “That’s right…. You’re a photographer?”

  “Yes.”

  Hank said, “Here’s a copy of a picture. It ain’t too clear because it isn’t a print, but it’s a picture of a picture. What do you make of it?” He handed her one of the postcard reproductions Tom Morton had made.

  “What,” Marion asked, studying the photograph, “do you want to know about it?”

  “Anything you can tell about the picture. Just from looking at it.”

  “Lots of things,” Marion said, laughing.

  “What, for instance?”

  “To begin with,” she said, “the picture was probably taken with a 3-A folding Kodak with a rapid rectilinear lens. It was taken in the middle of the day.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “Well,” she said, “despite the fact that the lens was stopped ’way down, there’s still a certain blurring at the extreme corners and there’s a peculiar diffused warmth to the shadows. You get that with a rapid rectilinear lens. The anastigmatic lens has a tendency to cut things wire-sharp. But there isn’t quite the warmth in the shadows and—”

  “Wait a minute. What do you mean the lens was stopped ’way down?” Hank asked.

  She said, “When the diaphragm shutter of a lens is wide open, the speed is increased but there’s very little depth to the field. In other words, if you take a fairly long focal-length lens such as is necessary to cover a postcard-size film, and set it, say, at twenty-five feet and leave it wide open, things beyond thirty feet or so will be out of focus, and things closer than twenty feet will be out of focus. I’ve forgotten the exact table, but that will serve as an illustration. On the other hand, if the lens is stopped ’way down, virtually everything will be in focus. The stopping down gives a depth of field. Objects only eight or ten feet away will be fairly sharp, and so will things in the distance.”

  “And this lens was stopped down?”

  “This lens was stopped down,” Marion said. “Moreover, see the little white fog down there in the corner? Well, that’s a light leak, and probably came from a little hole in the bellows of the camera. If it had been careless winding on the spool, you’d have seen a little different type of leak and … Here’s Mrs. Adrian now.”

  Corliss Adrian, trim and fresh, stepped out from behind a rock. Apparently she was engaged in watching the other side of the stream very intently. But she seemed to watch it a little too long, and her surprise on finally seeing Hank and Marion seemed a little too pronounced.

  Marion started to say, “I think she’s been watching us,” but then abruptly changed her mind and remained silent.

  Hank said good-naturedly, but still with a certain rebuke in his voice, “This here is a searching party out to locate the lost tenderfoot.”

  “Don’t ever worry about me,” Corliss Adrian said, with a quick, nervous laugh. “I decided to get up and see if I couldn’t see a deer.”

  “See anything?”

  “I saw some does and fawns and one young buck!”

  “Breakfast is just about over,” Hank said. “We’re trying to get things cleaned up so we can get away.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I’ll rush right on back. Hank—”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you see that canyon up there, the one with the peculiarly shaped rock up near the top of the ridge?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What place is that?”

  “Broken Leg Canyon.”

  “I wonder if we could go up there. It looks like marvelous country.”

  “That’s just about where I’m aiming to go,” Hank said.

  “Oh, that’s wonderful.”

  “You see,” Hank explained, “when Bill showed me the picture of that cabin, there wasn’t anything on it that gave a definite clue to where it was, but somehow, from the way the ground looked, I had a hunch the thing might be up Broken Leg Canyon. I thought we’d take a look up there. Provided it’s okay with Miss Chandler here.”

  “Oh, I think that would be wonderful,” Marion said eagerly. “It looks very inviting. That rock would really make a magnficent photograph.”

  “Then that’s all settled,” Corliss said.

  Marion wondered if Hank Lucas had detected a certain note of smug satisfaction in Corliss’s voice. She glanced at him from the corner of her eyes, but he seemed thoroughly engrossed in picking his way over stream-worn boulders.

  Dewitt was landing a fish as they walked past and was too engrossed in what he was doing to even see them. The cook was plainly angry, and Howard Kenney, faced with the job of getting the packsaddles on the horses, was indignantly silent.

  Corliss Adrian moved over to a place by the fire, apparently heedless of the taciturn disapproval of the cook. Lucas started getting packsaddles on the horses, and Marion moved over to the two men. “Is there anything I can do?” she asked Kenney.

  “Not a thing,” Kenney said, smiling. “You might get your personal things all together and the air out of your air mattress. No use trying to break any records getting a start, though. The Queen of Sheba is going to take her time.”

  Marion glanced over to where Corliss Adrian was settling herself in a folding chair at the camp table with every evidence of preparing to enjoy a leisurely breakfast.

  “Not much we can do until we get the kitchen ready to load,” Kenney explained. “Perhaps I’d better help you get the air out of your mattress.” He walked over to the beds, unloosened the valves, and slowly rolled up the sleeping bags, letting the air escape.

  “You like this life, don’t you?” Marion asked.

  “Love it.”

  “But it’s hard work, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, off and on. But it’s nice work. It’s the only way I can afford to hang around the country as much as I’d like to. Sort of a vacation.”

  “I see.”

  “Sleep all right last night?” he asked.

  “Fine.”

  “You would. You were taking the ride all right yesterday. You’re used to Western-saddle trail riding.”

  She became conscious of the curious interrogation in his eyes and knew suddenly that this was no casual questioning, but a well-planned examination which probably linked in with the three-way conference at the campfire last night.

  “Yes, I’ve done some mountain riding,” she said, and calmly turned away and began packing her personal belongings.

  Thereafter Marion avoided Howard Kenney….

  When camp had been broken and all but the last two horses loaded, Hank Lucas approached his dudes.

  “Kenney can finish throwing the packs, with the help of the cook, and bring the string along,” Lucas said. “I want to move on ahead and pick out a good campsite. If you folks would like to come along with me, you can save a little time.”

  “That’ll be fine,” Marion said.

  “Wait a minute,” Dewitt interposed cautiously. “How do you propose to make this extra time? As I see it, the packtrain will be ready to start in ten or fifteen minutes.”

  “There’s quite a bit of smooth trail ahead,” Hank said. “We can put the horses in a trot.”

  “In a trot!” Corliss Adrian exclaimed in dismay.

  Hank grinned. “Don’t appeal to you, eh?”

  “If it makes any difference to the others, I’ll be only too glad to go along,” Corliss said with dignity, “but if it doesn’t, I think I’d prefer to walk my horse. However, you’re in charge, and I’ll do as you say.”

  Dewitt stepped into the situation. “You two go right ahead,” he said. “Take all the time you want. We’ll come along with the pack string. After all, we’ve got all day. Our time isn’t that valuable.” Lucas glanced at Marion. She nodded.

  “Okay. Let’s go,” Lucas said. He took his chaps off the horn of the saddle, buckled them around his waist, fastened the snaps under his legs, put on his spurs, and swung into the saddle.