“There they—are!”
There they were, visible, plainly visible, at an almost perpendicular angle, half-a-mile below, the little round-shouldered figure on the bay cob dragging another dark object along, the hanging-back figure of Una on Revel—Revel rolling wearily, as the trail widened, and tugging upon the lead strap.
“Ha-loo!” The yell which the young aviator discharged, then, just tore at the mountain’s heart, calling on every echo in heaven and earth to help it to reach the unwilling fugitive, the agonized girl, there below.
Agony was in another girlish heart, too. The whole mountain blazed like a brush fire, as she saw them.
“Are—are you with me—still? Can you—see-ee....” she called back.
“Yes! I’m—coming. As fast as I can! Careful—now! Better l-late than not at all!”
But that was the moment, the harebrained moment, when the boy rider, all burning up within, too, disregarded his own maxim.
The trail, the winding trail, was steep enough, but here and there upon the mountainside were little precipitous cross-cuts by which a daredevil could cut corners, gain an advantage, strike in on the trail again, with a saving of a few hundred yards.
One presented itself at the moment—a mere gash, lined with stones as big as the rider’s fist.
“Gee whiz! If ’twas a thermometer, the mercury would have hard work climbing it, even in July,” was his freakish thought, thrown off by the laboring excitement—the wild heartache, too—within. “Going down, I’ll risk—it!”