Hetty laughed mockingly. “You and I are going to drive over to the Newcombes and stay the night. You get nervous when my father is away. But we are not going there quite straight; and you had better put your warmest things on.”
An hour later two of the best horses in Torrance’s stable drew the lightest sleigh up to the door, and Miss Schuyler turned with a smile to the remonstrating housekeeper.
“Nothing would induce me to stay here another night when Mr. Torrance was away,” she said. “You can tell him that, if he is vexed with Hetty, and you needn’t worry. We will be safe at Mrs. Newcombe’s before an hour is over.”
The housekeeper shook her head. “I guess not. It’s a league round by the bridge, and you couldn’t find the other trail in the dark.”
Miss Schuyler laughed. “Then, look at the time, and we’ll let you know when we get there,” she said.
Hetty whipped the team, and with a whirling of dusty snow beneath the runners, they swept away. Both sat silent, until the beat of hoofs rang amidst the trees as they swept through the gloom of the big bluff at a gallop, and Hetty laughed excitedly.
“Hold fast, Flo. You did that very well; but we have our alibi to prove, and are not going near the bridge,” she said.
She flicked the horses, and the trees swept away behind them and the long white levels rolled back faster yet to the drumming hoofs. The rush of cold wind stung Miss Schuyler’s face like the lash of a whip, her eyes grew hazy, and she held the furs about her as she swayed with the lurching of the sleigh. Darkness was closing in when they came to the forking of the trail, and, with a little cry of warning, Hetty lashed the team. The lurches grew sharper, and Miss Schuyler gasped now and then as she felt the sleigh swing rocking down a long declivity. Scattered birches raced up out of it, and the hammering beat of hoofs swelled into a roar as it rolled along a thicker belt of trees.
They rose higher and higher, a dusky wall athwart the way, and Miss Schuyler felt for a better hold for her feet, and grasped the big strapped robe as she looked in vain for any opening. That team had done nothing for more than a week, and there was no stinting of oats and maize at Cedar. Hetty, however, did not attempt to hold them, but sat swaying to the jolting, leaning forward as the shadowy barrier rushed up towards them, until, before she quite realized how they got there, Miss Schuyler found herself hurled forward down what appeared to be a steadily sloping tunnel. Dim trees swept by and drooping boughs lashed at her. Now and then there was a sharp crackling or a sickening lurch, and still they sped on furiously, until a faint white shining appeared ahead.
“What is it?” she gasped.