I could keep in the hollows for a few miles until out of sight of the Ridge Road, and Gowdy might rake the wayside to his heart's content and never find us except by accident; but I saw no way of getting off the traveled way without advertising my flight.

Of course Gowdy would follow up every fresh track because it was almost the only thing he could do with any prospect of striking the girl's trail.

I thought these things over as I drove on westward.

I quieted her by saying that I had to think it out.
It was a hot afternoon by this time, and looked like a stormy evening.
The clouds were rolling up in the north and west in lofty thunderheads, pearl-white in the hot sun, with great blue valleys and gorges below, filled with shadows.

Virginia, in a fever of terror, spent a part of her time looking out at the hind-end of the wagon-cover for Gowdy and Pinck Johnson, and a part of it leaning over the back of the seat pleading with me to leave the road and hide her.