CHAPTER XXII
A RACE WITH TIME
A dreary ride lay before us, for already the afternoon drew toward its close, and the light drifts were eddying under a bitter wind. The pale sun was still in the heavens, but a gray dimness crept up from the grass-land’s verge toward it, against which the patches of snow gleamed lividly. However, I thought little about the cold, for with careless stupidity I had allowed a swindler to rob my partner, and a succession of blizzards would not have stopped me then. Heysham, though uninterested, seemed equally determined, and rode well, so the long miles of grass rolled behind us. Now a copse of birches flitted past, now a clump of willows, or the tall reeds of a sloo went down with a great crackling before us, then there were more swelling levels, for our course was straight as the crow flies from horizon to horizon, and we turned aside for no obstacle.
It was dusk when with lowered heads we charged through the scattered birches of a ravine bluff, and far down in the hollow beneath I caught the dull gleam of snow-sprinkled ice.
“It’s a mean-looking gully,” gasped Heysham. “I guess that creek’s not frozen hard, and it’s pretty deep. Say, hadn’t we better lead our horses?” and I flung an answer over my shoulder:
“That will just make the difference between catching and missing the train. I’m going down in the saddle.”
“Then of course I’m going too,” said Heysham breathlessly. 243 “Your neck is worth as much as mine is anyway.”
For the next few moments I saw nothing at all but the shadowy lines of birch stems that went reeling past. A branch struck Heysham’s horse, and swerving, it jammed his leg against a tree; then there was a crash as my own beast, blundering, charged through a thicket where the brittle stems snapped like pistol-shots, but the salesman was close behind me, and with a shout of “No bridge for miles. I’ll show you the way over,” I drove my horse at the creek.
The quaggy banks were frozen hard now. They were also rough and ploughed up by the feet of cattle, which had come there to drink before the frost, and the leap looked horribly dangerous, for I dare not trust the ice; but the beast got safely off and came down with a great crackling amid thinly frozen mud and reeds. There was a splash and a flounder behind me, and then as we staggered forth Heysham came up abreast, with the water dripping from his horse, and I found breath to exclaim:
“Well done! I never should have thought a city man could bring a horse down there.”