At Mountain Spring, where travelers into the desert always filled their water barrels, Abe stopped again. It was a little past midnight. Loosing the saddle girth and removing the bridle, the surveyor let his horse drink and, taking a sack with his one feed of rolled barley, he deftly converted it into a rude nose-bag by cutting a strip in each side two-thirds the length of the sack and tying it over the horse's head. After eating his own lunch the surveyor stretched himself out flat on his back on the ground with every muscle relaxed. The sound of the horse munching his feed ceased; the animal's head dropped lower, and he too—wise in the wisdom of the open country—relaxed his muscles and rested.
For an hour they remained there, then again the bridle was adjusted, the saddle girths tightened, and they went on. But the gait was not so measured now nor the pace so steady, for they were well into the mountains, climbing toward the summit. But still there was no pause for breath, no relief for the straining muscles of the horse or for the weary aching body of the rider.
Crossing over the summit at last they were on the long western slope of the range with much better going, and the buckskin again carried his rider swiftly on while the thud and ring of the iron-shod hoofs on the rock-strewn road aroused the echoes in the dark and lonely hills.
Hour after hour of the long night passed with no sound to break the silence save the sound of the horse's feet, the rattle of bridle chains, the clink of spur or the creak of saddle leather. And when the gray of the morning came they were in the foot hills. Behind them the mountains—a bare and forbidding wall on the desert side—lifted ridge upon ridge with the green of pine on the heights, oak on the slopes and benches, and sycamore in the lower canyons. Streams of bright water tumbled merrily down their clean rocky courses or rested in quiet pools in the cold shadows. Before them spread the beautiful Coast country, sloping with many a dip and hollow and rolling ridge and rounding hill westward to the sea.
At the first ranch house they stopped. A short hour's rest with breakfast for man and horse, and they were away again. For dinner Abe drew rein in a beautiful little village in the heart of the rich farming country and at four o'clock, from the summit of a low hill, he saw the ocean, with the smoke of San Felipe dark against the blue of sky and water. There were yet three hours of riding. The tired man straightened himself in the saddle, the horse felt the motion and responded with a slight quickening of the movements of those wonderful muscles that still worked so steadily and smoothly under the buckskin coat. The animal seemed to realize with the man that the end of the journey was in sight. Yet it would take another hour and another of that steady, measured lope and the easy shuffling fox-trot.
The sun was dipping downward now toward the ocean's rim, and sea and sky were a blaze of glorious light; while on that dazzling background sail and mast and roof and steeple were painted black with edges of yellow flame. The horse, with the dogged, determined spirit of his breed, was drawing upon the last of his strength—the strength that had brought them so many miles without faltering. But still he answered gamely to the lifting of the reins with that measured, swinging lope.
But as he watched the sun go down, Abe Lee forgot his weariness, forgot his aching muscles and stiffened limbs. He remembered only that miles away in the little desert town there was a mob of striking Mexicans and Indian laborers who, disappointed and enraged at not receiving their promised pay, would be ready now for any deed that promised to satisfy their blind desire for vengeance. He knew that no explanations would be accepted. No plea for patience would be heard. They could not understand. In their eyes they had been tricked, fooled, cheated, defrauded of their just dues. They knew no better way to redress their wrongs than the primitive way—to destroy, to injure, perhaps to kill. And Barbara—Barbara was there. If only they would let that one night pass! If only Tex and Pat and the little handful of white men could hold them off a few more hours until he could get back.
Until he could get back! But what if Jefferson Worth had not received the telegram before he left San Felipe? What if there should be a still further delay in getting the money?
Through the lighted streets of the harbor city the buckskin and his rider finally made their way. A policeman, looking suspiciously at the dust-begrimed, sweat-caked, trembling horse that stood with legs braced wide and drooping head, and at the haggard-faced rider, directed the surveyor to the hotel a block away, and then stood watching them as they moved slowly toward the end of the ride.