Mrs. Rickard was all set to have hysterics, but Helen got her to drink some coffee and I wouldn't let them talk about not being able to get out. "Come daylight," I told them, "and there'll be nothing to it."
After breakfast they were considerably calmed down and seemed to have no doubt they could find Number Sixty. So they started out alone, but in an hour were back again. I took my car and started out ahead of them and I don't mind admitting I could feel bare feet walking up and down my spine.
I watched closely and all at once I realized that somehow we were headed back into the valley instead of heading out of it. So I stopped the car and we turned our cars around and headed back in the right direction. But in ten minutes we were turned around again. We tried again and this time we fairly crawled, trying to spot the place where we got turned around.
But we could never spot it.
We went back to my place and I called up Bert and Jingo and asked them to come over.
Both of them tried to lead the Rickards out, one at a time then the two of them together, but they were no better at it than I was. Then I tried it alone, without the Rickards following me and I had no trouble at all. I was out to highway Sixty and back in half an hour. So we thought maybe the jinx was broken and I tried to lead out the Rickard car, but it was no soap.
By mid-afternoon we knew the answer. Any of the natives could get out of the valley, but the Rickards couldn't.
Helen put Mrs. Rickard to bed and fed her some sedative and I went over to see Heath.
He was glad to see me and he listened to me, but all the time I was talking to him I kept remembering how one time I had wondered if maybe he could stretch out time. When I had finished he was silent for a while, as if he might have been going over some decision just to be certain that it was right.
"It's a strange business, Calvin," he said finally, "and it doesn't seem right the Rickards should be trapped in this valley if they don't want to stay here.