And can you not smell cedar smoke ?" "Not a whiff!" he said indignantly.
"Can't you even _see_ it ?" "Where in Heaven's name, Shiela ?" Her arm slanted upward across his saddle: "That pine belt is _too_ blue; do you notice it now?
That is smoke, my obstinate friend." "It's more probably swamp mist; I think you're only a pretty counterfeit!" he said, laughing as he caught the volatile aroma of burning cedar.

But he wouldn't admit that she knew where she was, even when she triumphantly pointed out the bleached skull of an alligator nailed to an ungainly black-jack.

So they rode on, knee to knee, he teasing her about her pretended woodcraft, she bantering him; but in his lively skirmishes and her disdainful retorts there was always now an undertone which they both already had begun to detect and listen for: the unconscious note of tenderness sounding at moments through the fresh, quick laughter and gayest badinage.
But under all her gaiety, at moments, too, the dull alarm sounded in her breast; vague warning lest her heart be drifting into deeper currents where perils lay uncharted and unknown.
With every intimate and silent throb of warning she shivered, responsive, masking her growing uncertainty with words.

And all the while, deep in her unfolding soul, she was afraid, afraid.

Not of this man; not of herself as she had been yesterday.