They had never even seen the Crittenden schoolhouse; they knew its location only by vague descriptions.
But they had ridden a thousand times in places far more bewildering and less known to them.

Like all true denizens of the mountain-desert, they had a sense of direction as uncanny as that of an Eskimo.

Now they struck off confidently through the dark and trailed up and down through the mountains until they reached a hollow in the center of which shone a group of dim lights.

It was the schoolhouse near the Barnes place, the scene of the dance.
So they turned back behind the hills and in the covert of a group of cottonwoods they kindled two more little fires, shading them on three sides with rocks and leaving them open for the sake of light on the fourth.
They worked busily for a time, without a word spoken by either of them.

The only sound was the rustling of Jacqueline's stolen silks and the purling of a small stream of water near them, some meager spring.
But presently: "P-P-Pierre, I'm f-freezing." He himself was numbed by the chill air and paused in the task of thrusting a leg into the trousers, which persisted in tangling and twisting under his foot.
"So'm I.It's c-c-cold as the d-d-d-devil." "And these--th-things--aren't any thicker than spider webs." "Wait.
I'll build you a great big fire." And he scooped up a number of dead twigs.
There was an interlude of more silk rustling, then: "P-P-Pierre." "Well ?" "I wish I had a m-m-m-mirror." "Jack, are you vain ?" A cry of delight answered him.