Page:Edward Ellis--Alden the Pony Express Rider.djvu/313

 at night, but Alden must have cut down the interval two-thirds, when he asked himself whether it was prudent to meet a stranger in this manner. The latter would have a rifle, while the younger was confined to his revolver. Though it was probable that nothing was to be feared from the man Alden was wise in using caution.

Looking about for a hiding place, he could descry none in the obscurity. He ran a few paces until well to one side of the course of the stranger, when he sat down on the ground. The next minute he saw the other was riding a horse on a walk. Moreover he had no companion. The flickering rays did not tell this as much as the hoofbeats, which were those of a single animal. The illumination added a little more. The left arm was thrust through a large ring at the top of a lantern and thus supported it. Alden could make out in the reflection the stranger’s hands (one of which grasped the knotted bridle reins), the pommel of his saddle, and the tuft of hair at the base of his pony’s neck, but everything else was invisible in the darkness.

Yielding to a strange misgiving, Alden had lain flat on the ground to escape discovery.