Page:Randall Parrish - The Red Mist.djvu/289

 Rh the horses stumbled, splashing us with water; once her mount stepped into a hole, and plunged desperately to regain footing, but the girl never uttered a sound, and my grip held. Half-way across I was certain as to the dead tree, and aimed our course straight by its guidance. The sullen sweep of the water, out of the darkness above, into the darkness below, and the brooding silence, lay hold on my nerves. The black shore we were approaching was full of mystery, forest shrouded.

"What is over there?" I asked, unable to keep still, and feeling the companionship of my own voice.

"Nothing; just a trail through a strip of woods up a long hill. The river road is only a few rods back—the road to Hot Springs."

"There is no house near?"

"Only the old Cowan place, two miles south, but that has been burned down."

"And to the northeast?"

"I have never been that way."

Nor had I, yet it seemed to me that was by far the safer course for us to follow. Cowan's gang was to the south, their headquarters somewhere in Monroe County. No doubt the range of mountains we must cross would prove the rendezvous of other bands no less dangerous, but we would be safer with any of them than in the hands of Cowan. Besides