To her, in her present mood, anything was better than inaction. They left their hiding-place, found a silent and hidden way a bit farther down the slope, went forward a hundred yards and stepped back into the faint trail. Their concern, each said inwardly, was to forge on and to follow Joe; thus they pretended within themselves to ignore that nebulous warning that they, like Joe, were followed. And so the day wore on, a day made up of uncertainty and vague threat. How full the silent forest lands were of little sounds! For therein lies the greatest of all forest-land mysteries; that silence in the solitudes may be made audible. Uncertainty struck the key-note of their long day. They sought to follow Mexicali Joe; they did not see him, they did not hear him, they did not know where he was. Was he still ahead of them, hastening on? How far ahead? A mile by now, not having paused while they lost time? A hundred yards? Or had he turned aside? Or had he thrown himself down flat somewhere, watching them go by? Was he following them, or had he struck out east or west, while they went on north? And was there some one following them? One man? Two? More? Or none at all? Uncertainty. And as they grew tired and hungry, the great silence oppressed them, and most of all this uncertainty of all things began to bite in upon their nerves as acid eats into glass, etching its own sign. "I'm getting jumpy," muttered Deveril, glaring at her, his eyes looking savage and stern. "This nonsense of yours...." "It's not nonsense!" "Anyway, it's getting on my nerves! There's no sense in this sort of thing. We're scaring ourselves like two kids in the dark. What's more, we are allowing a pace-setter to get us to going too hard and steady a clip; we'll be done in, the first thing we know. And we've got to begin figuring on where the next meal comes from. What I mean is, that we've got enough to do without wasting any more nerve force on what may or may not follow after us." "Joe is still ahead of us," she reminded him; "or, at any rate, we think that he is. He left last night in as big a hurry as we did; and he, too, came away without gun and fishing-tackle, and didn't stop to get Young Gallup to put him up a lunch. Then, on top of all that, Joe knows this country better than we do." "I get you!" he told her quickly. "Joe's as ready for food and lodging as we are, and Joe, unless we're wrong all along, is hiking ahead of us. Who knows but we'll invite ourselves to dine with Señor Joe before the day's done!... Is that it?" "I don't know how it may work out.... I hadn't gotten that far yet.... But if Joe is headed toward his secret, and if he does have a provision cache somewhere in the mountains ... a few items in tinned goods and, maybe, even coffee and sugar and canned milk...." "Let's go!" broke in Deveril, half in laughter and half in eagerness. "You make my mouth water with your surmisings."