That meant more haste, combined with a good bit of uncertainty as to the result. The trail had now become a winding zigzag up the snow-covered slope, and until it turned to head into one of the higher gulches, any object upon it as big as three marching figures and two loaded pack animals would stick out like a sore thumb against the white background from any lower point of view at the edge of timber line. So the question of escape hung once more upon the matter of speed. If they could disappear in the gulch before the pursuers reached the foot of the snow slope, the worst would be over.
They made it, finally, though by the narrowest possible margin. Just after they had urged the blown burros around the projecting rocky shoulder which hid them, the three panting climbers turned to look back. Down at the edge of the timber, fully five hundred feet below, they saw three mounted men push out upon the lower reaches of the trail. Larry shifted his rifle from his shoulder to the crook of his arm.
“They’re going to try it, anyway,” he said slowly. “If their horses are sharp-shod, they may be able to make it. I don’t know but what it’s going to come to a fight, after all.”
Contrary to everything Larry had ever known of him, Dick Maxwell was the one who counseled patience and a renewed effort to escape.
“I’d hate to see it come to gun-play,” he said. “It would be a pretty savage way to start our summer. Let’s not fight until we have to, anyway, Larry.”
But Larry Donovan was made of somewhat grimmer stuff.
“Goodness knows, I don’t want to kill anybody,” he protested. “But there’s this much about it, and I’m saying it to both of you. These wolves mean business. They think they’re on the sure trail of a gold mine, and we know what we may expect if they overtake us. If they can make the trail on horseback, as they are trying to, right now, it is only a question of a little time until they’ll chase us into a corner.”
“Well?” queried Dick. “What have you got up your sleeve?”
“This. As long as we’re climbing the hill, we’ve got the advantage. We’ll make the pass if we can, and take cover, if we can find any. I don’t want to kill a man, any more than you do, but if they are still trying to get at us, we’ll have to take a crack at the horses, in sheer self-defense.”