And so, with that inexplicable sense that here in the wilderness they were not yet free from pursuit, they crouched in the bushes and bent every force of every sense to detect their fancied pursuers. But the forest land, sun-smitten, a playland of light and shadow and tremulous breeze, lay steeped in quiet about them, and they saw nothing moving save the gently stirring leaves and occasional birds; half a dozen sparrows briefly stayed their flight upon a shrub in flower with pale-pink blossoms; a bevy of quail, forty strong, marched away through the narrow roadways under the low, drooping branches, with crested topknots bobbing; the forest land murmured and whispered and sang softly, and seemed empty of any other human presence than their own. And yet they waited, and at the end of their waiting, grown nervous despite themselves, though they had had no slightest evidence that pursuit was drawing close upon their heels, they were not able to shake from them that _feeling_ that danger, the danger from which they fled, was become a near-drawn menace. And all the more to be feared in that it approached so silently, covertly, hidden and ready to strike when their guard was down. "Just the same," said Deveril, deep in his own musings, "it can't be Jim Taggart, for that's not Taggart's way, having the goods on a man, and, besides, I fancy I put him out of the running." Then he looked at her curiously, and added: "And it can't be Bruce Standing, since you put him down and out and...." It was the first time that such a reference to the past had been made. Now she startled him by the quick vehemence of her denial, saying: "I didn't shoot Bruce Standing! I tell you...." He looked at her steadily, and she broke off, as she saw dawning in his eyes a look which was to be read as readily as were white stones to be glimpsed in the bottom of a clear pool. She had made her statement, and, whether true or false, he held it to be a lie. "In case they should somehow lay us by the heels," he said dryly, "you would come a lot closer to clearing yourself by saying that you shot him in self-defense than in denying everything. But they haven't got their ropes over our running horns yet!... Do you still feel that we are followed?" His look angered her; his words angered her still further. So to his question she made no reply. He looked at her again curiously. She refused to meet his eyes, coolly ignoring him. A little smile twitched at his lips.