“You bet—pile in. Say, you boys give me an awful start. I’m going to marry that girl.” Merriam wiped his brow in relief.
“And I’m going to marry the girl those brutes have carried off,” replied Scott, dismounting and turning his horse loose. Hard followed his example.
“Well, why didn’t you say so at first?” demanded Merriam, as they got into the car. “Man’s a gabby animal, ain’t he? Which way’d they go?”
“Up in the hills, we think,” replied Hard.
“It ain’t much of a road,” said the driver, doubtfully. “Still, if they can make it with one car we can with another, I reckon. Goes up Wildcat Canyon after a bit; nobody living up there since that old Mexican died. Say, d’you suppose they’d take her up to that old cabin? Gosh, we’d better hit it up!”
There was silence in the rear of the car. The two men saw in imagination the helpless girl and the tiny remote cabin. Scott leaned forward, devouring the road with despairing eyes. Hard sat beside him, quiet except when he answered Merriam’s questions, sparing Scott, whose impatience and irritation made speech unendurable.
The new road led directly into the foothills. It was narrow and very rough. The travelers were shaken about like marbles in a boy’s pocket. Wildcat Canyon, into which the road ran, was of a real loneliness—a loneliness that penetrated one’s consciousness like an odor or a sound. On either side the foothills rose, dark and forbidding; to the left of the road a deep arroyo ran; on the other, the slope of the hill rose gradually to the sky line. Ahead, the hills seemed to come together as the road became narrower and wound in and out, becoming finally a trail. There was no trace of habitation to be seen, though here and there a few range cattle wandered.
“Cabin’s about two miles up the canyon,” volunteered Merriam. “Can’t see it from here, the road winds too much.”
Scott interrupted him suddenly. “There they are!” he cried, pointing up the road. Three horsemen were riding rapidly in the same direction with the car.
“She’s not with them, Scott,” Hard said, thankfully.