“How do you know there's a woman in the case?” interrupted Miss Alice, wickedly I fear.
“How do—I—know—there's a woman?” slowly ejaculated Mrs. Rightbody, floundering in the snow and the unexpected possibility of such a ridiculous question. But here her guide flew to her assistance, and estopped further speech. And, indeed, a grave problem was before them.
The road that led to their single place of refuge—a cabin, half hotel, half trading-post, scarce a mile away—skirted the base of the rocky dome, and passed perilously near the precipitous wall of the valley. There was a rapid descent of a hundred yards or more to this terrace-like passage; and the guides paused for a moment of consultation, cooly oblivious, alike to the terrified questioning of Mrs. Rightbody, or the half-insolent independence of the daughter. The elder guide was russet-bearded, stout, and humorous: the younger was dark-bearded, slight, and serious.
“Ef you kin git young Bunker Hill to let you tote her on your shoulders, I'll git the Madam to hang on to me,” came to Mrs. Rightbody's horrified ears as the expression of her particular companion.
“Freeze to the old gal, and don't reckon on me if the daughter starts in to play it alone,” was the enigmatical response of the younger guide.
Miss Alice overheard both propositions; and, before the two men returned to their side, that high-spirited young lady had urged her horse down the declivity.
Alas! at this moment a gust of whirling snow swept down upon her. There was a flounder, a mis-step, a fatal strain on the wrong rein, a fall, a few plucky but unavailing struggles, and both horse and rider slid ignominiously down toward the rocky shelf. Mrs. Rightbody screamed. Miss Alice, from a confused debris of snow and ice, uplifted a vexed and coloring face to the younger guide, a little the more angrily, perhaps, that she saw a shade of impatience on his face.
“Don't move, but tie one end of the 'lass' under your arms, and throw me the other,” he said quietly.
“What do you mean by 'lass'—the lasso?” asked Miss Alice disgustedly.
“Yes, ma'am.”