Page:J Allan Dunn--The Girl of Ghost Mountain.djvu/156

138 end of her jump he swung his right leg swiftly over saddle and settled as she jumped into her stride, tearing after the roan, already twenty yards away. For a while Sheridan gave her free rein and the two raced towards Pioche Gap, drumming the light soil with an even rataplan of flying hoofs. Once he got a handful of cartridges from Jackson and filled his belt.

Neither spoke a word, their minds filled with speculation. Sheridan decided that there must have been an accident and then forsook his decision. In that case Thora would have called for a doctor. Something had happened to Mary. And he could not disassociate that possibility from Hollister. He had felt foolishly secure since they had built the gate. Even now he could not believe that Hollister had discovered the secret of the bar. He shook it all doggedly from him and bent all his energies on riding the mare to the best advantage. Both she and the roan had been resting up for a day or two and they were in rare fettle. The fresh air of morning left them cool and unsweated as they turned into Pioche Gap and galloped neck to neck along the smooth highway. Both mounts had speed and both had wide chests to hold the well-developed lungs, widened and deepened by living in the rare air of the heights, for Chico Mesa was four thousand feet above sea level.

They swung to the east and drifted, smooth and fast as the shadows of flying clouds along the foot of the mountains, clattered up the narrow ravine and through the spray of the waterfall without pausing, their riders bent to their saddle-horns.