Page:Edward Ellis--Alden the Pony Express Rider.djvu/225

 to the pony. The reins dangled loose upon the moist satin neck, and the rider did not speak. Looking down at the stony ground he now and then caught glimpses of hoof prints, showing that others had traveled the way before him. Generally the path as it might be called was so wide that only now and then did the ponies travel in one another’s footsteps.

Alden reflected that the distance from his starting point to the next station westward was eight miles or so. He calculated that it would be covered in the course of the next half hour, always provided no “obstacle” was encountered.

“No matter how fast we go, this mail must be late; there is no making up the time already lost.”

Obeying that instinct which often touches reason in the horse, Dick slackened his speed of his own accord, as he approached the boundary of the plateau where the ground not only became rougher but inclined upward at a rather stiff grade. Still his gait was a run, and swifter than is often seen. So long as he could maintain it he would do so.

The long summer afternoon was drawing