Page:Edward Ellis--Alden the Pony Express Rider.djvu/284

 Alden could not help wondering whether a turn in the trail would not force him to pass through the spur as he had done in the case of the lesser range behind him.

“If it is so, there must be a pass, for many others have traveled this road before me.”

It seemed that he ought to overtake some emigrant train, since hundreds of them were plodding westward, and his speed was much greater than theirs. But he saw no more evidence of other persons about him than if he were in the midst of an unknown desert. He might as well have been the only horseman or footman within a thousand miles of the spot.

It was with a queer sensation that once more scanning the ridge to the northwest, Alden distinguished a column of smoke climbing into the sky, just as he had discerned one earlier in the afternoon. He had not yet decided in his own mind whether the former bore any relation to his passage through the gorge, and he was equally uncertain about the signal that now obtruded itself. He brought his binocular to bear, and with ’Ceph on a rapid walk, spent several minutes in studying the vapor. The result was as in the previous instance,