Adventure Magazine Cover — page 94: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

84 Adventure tallest word in the dictionary. It is indeed a mighty barrier before the Lord. “Did you ever stop to think they may come up through this brush?” said Molly, on ‘whom the silence and the sad gray stubs on either hand were beginning to tell. “No,” he answered, “I didn’t, ’cause they can’t. The farther down yuh go the worse it gets. They’d never get through. Not with hosses. We’re all right.” “Are we?” She stood up in her stirrups, and looked down through a vista between the stubs. They had reached the top of the moun- tain. It was a saddle-backed mountain, and they were at the outer edge of the east- ern hump. Far below was a narrow valley running north and south. It was a, valley - without trees or stream and through it a string of dots were slipping to the north. “Are we all right?” she persisted. down there.”’ At this he turned his head and craned his © neck. “T guess,”’ he said, stepping out, “‘we bet- ter boil this kettle a h’l faster.” She made no comment but always-she looked down the mountainside 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 passed out of the burned-over area of underbrush and stubs and scuffed through brushless groves of fir and spruce where no grass grew and not a ray of sunshine struck the ground and the wind soughed always mournfully. But here and there were cOmparatively open spaces, grassy, drenched with sunshine and sparsely sprinkled with lovely mountain maples and solitary yellow pines. In the wider open spaces 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 cafion, grown up in spruce, divided the mountain they were descending fromm the next one to the north. This next one thrust a rocky shoulder east- erly. The valley where the horsemen rode bent round this shoulder in a curve mea- sured 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 “Look | 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 narrow eleft 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 Fryin’-Pans an’ then we'll head_northwest for the Cross-in-a-box. That’s the nearest place where I got friends. An’ I don’t mind sayin’ we'll be needin’ friends bad, me an’ you both.” ‘Suppose that posse reaches the trail and the bridge before we do?” “Oh, I guess they won’t. They gotta go alla way round an’ 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 pass 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, thassall.”’ | “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 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. 4} AN HOUR later they crossed the Za 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 Eomicbooks (EO)