“I don’t see how there could be,” replied the puzzled Adams, while Parson Brush, understanding what the distraught captain meant, explained:
“Was there anything in their appearance which suggested that they meant to take anything more than an ordinary gallop?”
“I didn’t think of it at the time, but I can see now there was. Each of them had what seemed to be extra clothing and perhaps they had food, though I couldn’t make sure of that. You know there has been something in the sky that looked like a coming storm, and I thought it was on that account that the clothing was took along. Then, as the leftenant had knocked off work, it might be he was not feeling very well.”
“The scoundrel made that very excuse for leaving me,” bitterly commented Captain Dawson, “but he wouldn’t have taken the clothing as part of the same design for there was no need of anything of the kind. They laid their plans carefully and everything joined to make it as easy as possible.”
“Your thoughts were precisely what ours would have been,” said the parson, drawn toward the messenger unjustly accused by the captain in the tumult of his grief;“ if we had seen the two start, we should have believed it was for one of the usual gallops which the young lady is so fond of taking; but, Vose, if we would have certainly gone astray in the mountains, without 189 your guidance, how will it be with them, when she has never been over the trail and he has ridden over it but once?“
“They are sure to have a tough time of it which will make it all the harder for us.”
“How is that?”
“Some good luck may lead them right; more than likely, howsumever, they’ll get all wrong; therefore, if we stick to the path we may pass ’em a half dozen times. You see it’s the blamed onsartinty of the whole bus’ness.”
“I would not question your wisdom on such matters, Vose, but when I remember that each of them is riding a horse, and that the two must leave traces behind them, I cannot apprehend that we shall go very far astray in our pursuit. The most likely trouble as it seems to me is that they will travel so fast that it will be almost impossible to overtake them.”
“If they can manage to keep to the trail, it is going to be hard work to come up with them. You haven’t forgot that when I’m pushing through the mountains I sometimes have to hunt a new trail altogether.”