Page:Cy Warman--The express messenger and other tales of the rail.djvu/29

Rh these he filled his pockets. The gold he must leave, for the journey would be a tiresome one. The country, which was new to him, was extremely rough.

At times he found himself at the bottom of a deep gorge, and again at the top of a steep bluff, and saw before him a black and apparently bottomless abyss. There was no moon, but the friendly stars would guide him. Pike's Peak, standing high against the sky, showed him where the east was, while the Greenhorn range rose rough and abrupt to the west. But when he had been upon his journey less than an hour, a gray cloud hung like a heavy fog on the hills and shut out all the light from the heavens and obscured the earth. Instead of waiting for the mists to clear away, he kept on going and was soon hopelessly lost, so far as any knowledge of the points of the compass was concerned. He might, for what he knew, be headed for the hills, or he might be walking in the direction of the junction and the State's prison.

At last, having reached what appeared to be the summit of a little hill, he sat down upon a