called, in distress.
"Nell, don't you worry, now."
"Let me carry you," suggested Dale.
"No. I'll s-s-stick on this horse or d-die," fiercely retorted Bo.
The two men looked up at her white face and then at each other. Then Roy walked away toward the dark bunch of horses off the road and Dale swung astride the one horse left.
"Keep close to me," he said.
Bo fell in line and Helen brought up the rear.
Helen imagined she was near the end of a dream. Presently she would awaken with a start and see the pale walls of her little room at home, and hear the cherry branches brushing her window, and the old clarion-voiced cock proclaim the hour of dawn.
CHAPTER VI
The horses trotted. And the exercise soon warmed Helen, until she was fairly comfortable except in her fingers. In mind, however, she grew more miserable as she more fully realized her situation. The night now became so dark that, although the head of her horse was alongside the flank of Bo's, she could scarcely see Bo. From time to time Helen's anxious query brought from her sister the answer that she was all right.
Helen had not ridden a horse for more than a year, and for several years she had not ridden with any regularity. Despite her thrills upon mounting, she had entertained misgivings. But she was agreeably surprised, for the horse, Ranger, had an easy gait, and she found she had not forgotten how to ride. Bo, having been used to riding on a farm near home, might be expected to acquit herself admirably. It occurred to Helen what a plight they would have been in but for the thick, comfortable riding outfits.
Dark as the night was, Helen could dimly make out the road underneath. It was rocky, and apparently little used. When Dale turned off the road into the low brush or sage of what seemed a level plain, the traveling was harder, rougher, and yet no slower. The horses kept to the gait of the leaders. Helen, discovering it unnecessary, ceased attempting to guide Ranger. There were dim shapes in the gloom ahead, and always they gave Helen uneasiness, until closer approach proved them to be rocks or low, scrubby trees. These increased in both size and number as the horses progressed. Often Helen looked back into the gloom behind. This act was involuntary and occasioned her sensations of dread. Dale expected to be pursued. And Helen experienced, along with the dread, flashes of unfamiliar resentment. Not only was there an attempt afoot to rob her of her heritage, but even her personal liberty. Then she shuddered at the significance of Dale's words regarding her possible abduction by this hired gang. It seemed monstrous, impossible. Yet, manifestly it was true enough to Dale and his allies. The West, then, in reality was raw, hard, inevitable.
Suddenly her horse stopped. He had come up alongside Bo's horse. Dale had halted ahead, and apparently was listening. Roy and the pack-train were out of sight in the gloom.
"What is it?" whispered Helen.
"Reckon I heard a wolf," replied Dale.
"Was that cry a wolf's?" asked Bo. "I heard. It was wild."
"We're gettin' up close to the foot-hills," said Dale. "Feel how much colder the air is."
"I'm warm now," replied Bo. "I guess being near froze was what ailed me.... Nell, how 're you?"
"I'm warm, too, but—" Helen answered.
"If you had your choice of being here or back home, snug in bed—which would you take?" asked Bo.
"Bo!" exclaimed Helen, aghast.
"Well, I'd choose to be right here on this horse," rejoined Bo.
Dale heard her, for he turned an instant, then slapped his horse and started on.
Helen now rode beside Bo, and for a long time they climbed steadily in silence. Helen knew when that dark hour before dawn had passed, and she welcomed an almost imperceptible lightening in the east. Then the stars paled. Gradually a grayness absorbed all but the larger stars. The great white morning star, wonderful as Helen had never seen it, lost its brilliance and life and seemed to retreat into the dimming blue.
Daylight came gradually, so that the gray desert became distinguishable by degrees. Rolling bare hills, half obscured by the gray lifting mantle of night, rose in the foreground, and behind was gray space, slowly taking form and substance. In the east there was a kindling of pale rose and silver that lengthened and brightened along a horizon growing visibly rugged.
"Reckon we'd better catch up with Roy," said Dale, and he spurred his horse.
Ranger and Bo's mount needed no other urging, and they swung into a canter. Far ahead the pack-animals showed with Roy driving them. The cold wind was so keen in Helen's face that tears blurred her eyes and froze her cheeks. And riding Ranger at that pace was like riding in a rocking-chair. That ride, invigorating and exciting, seemed all too short.
"Oh, Nell, I don't care—what becomes of—me!" exclaimed Bo, breathlessly.
Her face was white and red, fresh as a rose, her eyes glanced darkly blue, her hair blew out in bright, unruly strands. Helen knew she felt some of the physical stimulation that had so roused Bo, and seemed so irresistible, but somber thought was not deflected thereby.
It was clear daylight when Roy led off round a knoll from which patches of scrubby trees—cedars, Dale called them—straggled up on the side of the foot-hills.
"They grow on the north slopes, where the snow stays longest," said Dale.
They descended into a valley that looked shallow, but proved to be deep and wide, and then began to climb another foot-hill. Upon surmounting it Helen saw the rising sun, and so glorious a view confronted her that she was unable to answer Bo's wild exclamations.
Bare, yellow, cedar-dotted slopes, apparently level, so gradual was the ascent, stretched away to a dense ragged line of forest that rose black over range after range, at last to fail near the bare summit of a magnificent mountain, sunrise-flushed against the blue sky.
"Oh, beautiful!" cried Bo. "But they ought to be called Black Mountains."
"Old Baldy, there, is white half the year," replied Dale.
"Look back an' see what you say," suggested Roy.
The girls turned to gaze silently. Helen imagined she looked down upon the whole wide world. How vastly different was the desert! Verily it yawned away from her, red and gold near at hand, growing softly flushed with purple far away, a barren void, borderless and immense, where dark-green patches and black lines and upheaved ridges only served to emphasize distance and space.
"See thet little green spot," said Roy, pointing. "Thet's Snowdrop. An' the other one—'way to the right—thet's Show Down."
"Where is Pine?" queried Helen, eagerly.
"Farther still, up over the foot-hills at the edge of the woods."
"Then we're riding away from it."
"Yes. If we'd gone straight for Pine thet gang could overtake us. Pine is
