Part 68 (1/2)

”Are we all right?” she persisted. ”Look down there.”

At this he turned his head and craned his neck.

”I guess,” he said, stepping out, ”we'd better boil this kettle a li'l faster.”

She made no comment, but always she looked down the mountain side and watched, when the stubs gave her the opportunity, that ominous string of dots. She had never been hunted before.

They crossed the top of the mountain, keeping to the ridge of rock, and started down the northern slope. Here they pa.s.sed out of the burned-over area of underbrush and stubs and scuffed through brushless groves of fir and spruce where no gra.s.s grew and not a ray of suns.h.i.+ne struck the ground and the wind soughed always mournfully.

But here and there were comparatively open s.p.a.ces, gra.s.sy, drenched with suns.h.i.+ne, and spa.r.s.ely sprinkled with lovely mountain maples and solitary yellow pines. In the wider open s.p.a.ces they could see over the tops of the trees below them and catch glimpses of the way they must go.

A deep notch, almost a canon, grown up in spruce divided the mountain they were descending from the next one to the north. This next one thrust a rocky shoulder easterly. The valley where the hors.e.m.e.n rode bent round this shoulder in a curve measured in miles. They could not see the riders now.

”There's a trail just over the hill,” said Racey, nodding toward the mountain across the notch. ”It ain't been regularly used since the Daisy petered out in '73, but I guess the bridge is all right.”

”And suppose it ain't all right?”

”We'll have to grow wings in a hurry,” he said, soberly, thinking of the deep cleft spanned by the bridge. ”Does this trail lead to Farewell?”

”Same thing--it'll take us to the Farewell trail if we wanted to go there, but we don't. We ain't got time. We'll stick to this trail till we get out of the Frying-Pans and then we'll head northeast for the Cross-in-a-box. That's the nearest place where I got friends. And I don't mind saying we'll be needing friends bad, me and you both.”

”Suppose that posse reaches the trail and the bridge before we do?”

”Oh, I guess they won't. They have to go alla way round and we go straight mostly. Don't you worry. We'll make the riffle yet.”

His voice was more confident than his brain. It was touch and go whether they would reach the trail and the bridge first. The posse in the valley--that was what would stack the cards against them. And if they should pa.s.s the bridge first, what then? It was at least thirty miles from the bridge to the Cross-in-a-box ranch-house. And there was only one horse. Indeed, the close squeak was still squeaking.

”Racey, you're limping!”

”Not me,” he lied. ”Stubbed my toe, tha.s.sall.”

”Nothing of the kind. It's those tight boots. Here, you ride, and let me walk.” So saying, she slipped to the ground.

As was natural the horse stopped with a jerk. So did Racey.

”You get into that saddle,” he directed, sternly. ”We ain't got time for any foolishness.”

Foolishness! And she was only trying to be thoughtful. Foolishness!

She turned and climbed back into the saddle, and sat up straight, her backbone as stiff as a ramrod, and looked over his head and far away.

For the moment she was so hopping mad she forgot the danger they were in. They made their way down into the heavy growth of Engelmann spruce that filled the notch, crossed the floor of the notch, and began again to climb.

An hour later they crossed the top of the second mountain and saw far below them a long saddle back split in the middle by a narrow cleft.

At that distance it looked very narrow. In reality, it was forty feet wide. Racey stopped and swept with squinting eyes the place where he knew the bridge to be.

”See,” he said, suddenly, pointing for Molly's benefit. ”There's the Daisy trail. I can see her plain--to the left of that arrowhead bunch of trees. And the bridge is behind the trees.”

”But I don't see any trail.”

”Grown up in gra.s.s. That's why. It's behind the trees mostly, anyhow.