“You’re too old a man, Jim–––”
“Henry–––”
“Don’t talk to me! Do as I tell you!” thundered de Spain.
McAlpin bowed his head.
“Ready!” yelled Page, buckling the rifle holster in place. Still talking, and with McAlpin glued to his elbow, de Spain vaulted into the saddle, caught the lines from Bull’s hands, and steadied the Lady as she sidestepped nervously––McAlpin following close and dodging the dancing hoofs as he looked earnestly up to catch the last word. De Spain touched the horse with the lines. She leaped through the doorway and he raised a backward hand to those behind. Running outside the door, they yelled a chorus of cries after the swift-moving horseman and, clustered in an excited group, watched the Lady with a dozen great strides round the Calabasas trail and disappear with her rider into the whirling snow.
She fell at once into an easy reaching step, and de Spain, busy with his reflections, hardly gave thought to what she was doing, and little more to what was going on about him.
No moving figure reflects the impassive more than a horseman of the mountains, on a long ride. 402 Though never so swift-borne, the man, looking neither to the right nor to the left, moving evenly and statue-like against the sky, a part of the wiry beast under him, presents the very picture of indifference to the world around him. The great swift wind spreading over the desert emptied on it snow-laden puffs that whirled and wrapped a cloud of flakes about horse and rider in the symbol of a shroud. De Spain gave no heed to these skirmishing eddies, but he knew what was behind them, and for the wind, he only wished it might keep the snow in the air till he caught sight of Nan.
The even reach of the horse brought him to the point where Nan had changed to the stage wagon. Without a break in her long stride, Lady Jane took the hint of her swerving rider, put her nose into the wind, and headed north. De Spain, alive to the difficulties of his venture, set his hat lower and bent forward to follow the wagon along the sand. With the first of the white flurries passed, he found himself in a snowless pocket, as it were, of the advancing storm. He hoped for nothing from the prospect ahead; but every moment of respite from the blinding whirl was a gain, and with his eyes close on the trail that had carried Nan into danger, he urged the Lady on.
When the snow again closed down about him he calculated from the roughness of the country 403 that he should be within a mile of the road that Nan was trying to reach, from the Gap to Sleepy Cat. But the broken ground straight ahead would prevent her from driving directly to it. He knew she must hold to the right, and her curving track, now becoming difficult to trail, confirmed his conclusion.
A fresh drive of the wind buffeted him as he turned directly north. Only at intervals could he see any trace of the wagon wheels. The driving snow compelled him more than once to dismount and search for the trail. Each time he lost it the effort to regain it was more prolonged. At times he was compelled to ride the desert in wide circles to find the tracks, and this cost time when minutes might mean life. But as long as he could he clung to the struggle to track her exactly. He saw almost where the storm had struck the two wayfarers. Neither, he knew, was insensible to its dangers. What amazed him was that a man like Duke Morgan should be out in it. He found a spot where they had halted and, with a start that checked the beating of his heart, his eyes fell on her footprint not yet obliterated, beside the wagon track.