She glanced right and left; the fissure seemed to extend, like a moat or ditch, from the distant road to the upland between her and the great wheat valley below, from which she was shut off.

An odd sense of being in some way a prisoner confronted her.

She drew back with an impatient start, and perhaps her first real sense of indignation.

A voice behind her, which she at once recognized, scarcely restored her calmness.
"You can't get across there, miss." She turned.

It was the young inventor from the wheat ranch, on horseback and with a clean face.