“Let ’em out again!” said the girl. “They’re after us!”
CHAPTER XVI
THE RENDEZVOUS
WHEN, after a long, steady gallop, the fugitives rested their horses again, no unusual sounds broke the eternal quietude of the desert night.
For a time they walked the animals again, and then, at a late hour, the leader of the flight turned sharply toward the mountains and continued in their direction.
Foothills are little more than a figure of speech as regards the mountain ranges of southern California; for the mountains uprear themselves virtually from level land with unexpected abruptness, and there are scarcely any intermediate levels to render an approach gradual. Before very long, then, the night riders had left the desert below them and were in such foothills as the range boasted; and in less time still they were ascending sharply and entering forests of piñon pine and mountain mahogany. Still farther up they came upon a sprinkling of pines and junipers, and before two hours had passed found themselves in a black forest of conifers.
“I can’t imagine how you know where you’re going,” the man muttered to Manzanita.
“I do, though,” she assured him. “There’s an old, old road on our right now, which we have crossed and recrossed several times to give us our bearings. I’m keeping close to it and following its general trend; but it would never do for us to follow it directly. It’s almost overgrown with brush. It ran to a gold mine worked by the Spanish, perhaps fifty years ago.”
Many times they rested their tired horses during the steep ascent. Signs of morning were in air and sky when they topped the summit and crossed a mountain meadow, lush with tall, cool grasses. On the opposite side of the level valley Manzanita plunged into the forest again. They rode for perhaps half a mile, when she reined in and left the saddle.
“This is as far as we go with the caballos,” she announced. “We’ll hide the saddles and bridles here, loose the broncs, and pack in to where we’re going to hide. Two miles farther, perhaps. The horses will head back for the meadow we crossed, and the searchers will find them there, no doubt. But that’ll tell ’em nothing. Whenever our horses get away down at Squawtooth in summer they always drift up here to the meadows. That’s why I had you ride behind me after we left the desert. One wandering horse usually trails another. Even if they should find our horses’ tracks leading to the meadow, they won’t know whether they were carrying riders or not. They’ll have a job to find out just where we got out of the saddles.”
For a time she searched about in the blackness, and presently called to him to bring the saddles to her. When he had obeyed he found her standing over a brush heap of dry black-oak boughs.