“I have it,” said Thatcher. “By hard riding you can get to Niles in time to catch the freight as it goes up from San Jose. It will get you down in time for the first boat, if that's what you want.”
“Good! How far is it?”
“We call it eighteen miles,—it's a little over that by the road. There's only one nasty bit. That's in the canyon.”
“I think we shall need the pleasure of your company,” I said.
The stableman was moved by a conflict of feelings. He was much indisposed to a twenty-mile ride in the storm and darkness; yet he was plainly unwilling to trust his horses unless he went with them. I offered him a liberal price for the service.
“It's a bad job, but if you must, you must,” he groaned. And he soon had three horses under the saddle.
I eyed the beasts with some disfavor. They were evidently half-mustang, and I thought undersized for such a journey. But I was to learn before the night was out the virtues of strength and endurance that lie in the blood of the Indian horse.
“Hist! What's that?” said Fitzhugh, extinguishing the light.
The voices of the storm and the uneasy champing of the horses were the only sounds that rewarded a minute's listening.
“We must chance it,” said I, after looking cautiously into the darkness, and finding no signs of a foe.