“We can c-cross at the head of this draw,” he stammered, and it made him furious to find that he could not better control his voice.
“Let’s be moggin’ along, then,” said the man of action, immediately setting a pace up the wooded ravine that left Philip a stumbling straggler at his heels. “They’ve got that pardner o’ yourn holed up somewheres—in yer cabin, most likely. Reckon he’s got sand enough to hang on?”
“Harry?—he—he’ll hang on till they kill him!” Philip panted.
“What-all’s he got for fightin’ tools?”
“Two Winchesters.”
“Good a-plenty. How much furder do we keep to this here draw?”
“Another hundred yards or so; then bear sharp to the left.”
Following directions, the big man presently turned short into the ravine-side forest and began to climb, pulling himself from tree to tree up the steep acclivity with an agility that seemed to take no account of his great size and weight. Breathlessly Philip struggled after him, marvelling at the reserves of energy Garth was able to draw upon after a long day and night of steady tramping and mountain climbing. For himself, he was nearly at the collapsing point when they reached the easier going on the summit of the spur. As they pressed on, the spattering crackle of rifle fire came intermittently from the gulch, and at each fresh outblaze he started nervously and quickened his pace.
“For God’s sake, hurry!” he gasped. “They’ll murder Harry before we get there—if they haven’t already done it!”
But Garth read the story of the ragged firing with shrewder intelligence.