Page:Honore Willsie--Judith of the godless valley.djvu/308

 It was not until they were half-way to the summit, pushing between towering jade green walls, where the wind was excluded, that Douglas suddenly pulled up. The snow was level and hard-packed. There were hoof and wheel marks, leading south. Friday's mail stage. A number of hoof marks leading north. The two men dismounted and for many minutes studied these.

"Here!" exclaimed Peter at last. "Four horses in a walk, up to this point. Here, they break into a trot; and this is old Johnny on Jingo, and that is the Wolf Cub.

"Easy, Doug! Don't kill the horses. It's only a guess you are following."

Douglas grunted impatiently and set his horse, Justus, to the trot. At the summit, still following trail, they pulled up to breathe the horses, then plunged downward. Half through the afternoon they followed the hoof marks. The biting wind rose and the sun warmed their backs as they crested the ridges. The wind fell and the sun darkened as they dropped into the valleys. Eagles on the hunt hung watchfully in the sky. Coyotes now and again sneaked across the trail before them. The two men threshed their arms across their chests or dropped their aching feet from the stirrups, and still the hoof marks of five horses led on before them.

Their shadows had grown long and blue-black on the trail before them when suddenly Douglas pulled Justus up, and Peter pushed up beside him. About a quarter of a mile farther on lay the half-way house. They were crossing a broad, flat valley into which the trail dipped lazily. Just before them, the tracks of two horses and a dog led sharply to the left and disappeared. Some one had fallen. There was a confusion of tracks, then a two-horse trail led on toward the half-way house.