No sooner did the boss realize that they were going in the wrong direction than he roared out angrily, “Wait! That’s not the direction to go!”
Jo Ann paid no attention to this gruff command but kept on.
A few moments later her horse was stopped by being crowded against the rocky wall. Then she felt her arm seized in a vise-like grip and heard the boss’s shouts in her ear. A flash of lightning showed her his anger-contorted face only a few inches from her own.
Though she was terrified, she controlled herself enough to cry out, “No sabe. No sabe.”
“I make you sabe!” He blocked the trail in front of her with his horse, then leaped off and grabbed her horse’s bridle and turned him around. As he struck him sharply with his quirt, the animal leaped forward.
Instantly she realized the danger of pushing one of the other horses off the narrow trail and drew back on the reins in time to avert a disaster.
With Florence in the lead they set off toward the mine.
“At least I made him waste a little time,” Jo Ann thought, “but if he finds out I’m deliberately trying to delay him there’s no telling what he’ll do. He’s the meanest man I ever saw.”
Having come to an unusually slippery stretch she could think only of the danger of riding on the treacherous winding mountain trail in the darkness. One thing lifted her flagging spirits. The storm was abating—abating almost as rapidly as it had begun. “Now if only the moon’ll come up,” she thought.
Shortly afterwards she noted a light shining from behind the fast-sailing storm clouds. Even as she looked, the moon came into full view, lighting up the mountain side.