Sammy, too, was silent.
She felt something that was strangely like fear, when she found herself alone with her big neighbor.

Now and then she glanced timidly up at him and tried to find some word with which to break the silence.

She half wished that she had not come.

So they rode together through the lights and shadows down into the valley, the only creatures in all the free life of the forest who were not free.
At last the girl spoke, "It's mighty good of you to take me over to Mandy's to-night.

There ain't no one else I could o' gone with." There was no reply, and Sammy, seeming not to notice, continued talking in a matter-of-fact tone that soon--for such is the way of a woman--won him from his mood, and the two chatted away like the good comrades they had always been.
Just after they had crossed Fall Creek at Slick Rock Ford, some two miles below the mill, Young Matt leaned from his saddle, and for a little way studied the ground carefully.