"Up and down," stated the old man, cryptically. "Well, if you want to overtake them chums of hers you'll have to lay on the braid pretty smart! If they kept on going at the rate they started off they're halfway to the junction by now." When the girl was in her seat Dick sent the bays along at a sharp clip down the highway by which Crowley and his companion had departed. Lida had conferred with Dick on the way down from the big house and had decided on a bit of guile to divert the attention of the gossips of Adonia from her real objective. According to all appearances she was in full flight toward the city, or else was chasing up Ward Latisan; the cynics, after that affair in the street when she had pleaded with the young man, opined that she was brazen enough to do almost anything that a girl should not. Brophy watched her out of sight. "If it ain't one thing it's another with these table girls," was his sour comment. "I don't know what I'm liable to draw next; the Queen of Sheby, maybe!" When a hill shut off the view from Adonia the bays swung into a side lane which connected with the tote road leading north along the Noda waters. A girl who wore for her armor Latisan's jacket and his cap, and carried as credentials the woods baton of the last of the independent timber barons of the Noda, was hastening on her mission with the same sort of fervent zeal that made Joan of Arc a conqueror. Family fealty, the eager desire to right in some measure the wrong done by her father, anxious determination to repair her own fault--all these were animating impulses in this Joan of the Northland. But now especially was she aware that she was seeking by service to absolve herself in the estimation of a poor chap whose love for her had made him forget his duty. There was no talk between the girl and her charioteer. She had plenty of thought to occupy her, and he drove on with his gaze straight between the ears of the nigh horse. The road was crooked; when she glanced behind, the woods seemed to be shutting doors on her, closing out the world with which she had been familiar; and ahead, as the road turned, she was looking into vistas which led to the unknown--to a duty of tremendous import--to a task which seemed too great for a girl to accomplish. One knowledge comforted her--it was a knowledge which came from her childhood memories--she could trust those rough men of the woods to treat a girl with respect if she deserved it; but would she be able to convince them that the girl who wrought such mischief to Ward Latisan deserved respect? They might, as her grandfather said, ridicule a man who had been fooled by a girl, if that man appeared to them and tried to make good his authority; but there would be no laugh in the north country behind Latisan's back, now that he had fled desperately from the wreck of his prospects.