Star did not fail him. Taking a direction at right angles and to the left of the route Flash had picked, the bronco sought to avoid the rumbling slide by long, desperate bounds. Somehow, he had chosen the only avenue of escape left to him. As he shot over the mountain, Roy noticed that they were leaving the landslide behind. In a few moments he and Star stood in safety, while in the distance the rocks still crashed down the slope.
As Teddy’s first thought had been for his brother, so now Roy hoped fervently that Teddy had succeeded in riding clear.
He stopped and looked about him. The thunder of the landslide had died to an echo, and Roy knew that within five minutes the earth would settle entirely. Still it would not be exactly safe to ride over that stretch of mountain for some time, as the least disturbance might start another slide.
“Well, if she starts, she starts,” Roy said aloud. “I’ve got to find Teddy! If he’s off his horse, he’ll want to ride double with me. Guess Star can hold us; hey, old boy? Get along now. Tread easy. Don’t go kicking about or you’ll have the whole mountain on top of us. All right, mosey!”
Diagonally across the mountain he rode, his eyes narrowing as the sun neared the horizon and Teddy was still missing. Yet, he thought, no news is good news, and Teddy might even now be waiting at the ranch for him.
To the best of his knowledge, the trail he rode led toward the X Bar X. If Teddy was really lost, it would be best to make for home and send out a searching party. One man could do nothing in this trackless, wild country. Turning in his saddle, Roy squinted at the descending sun, now a dull red ball.
“Take it on the run, Star,” he said aloud, in a somewhat anxious voice. “Night, she’s coming. Want to find out if Teddy got home safe. If not—”
He did not complete his thought, but let the reins hang loosely over the bronco’s neck. Star eased into a gallop.
“I suppose we’re going right,” Roy remarked after a moment. “Seems as though the ranch should be due east. When that slide came, we were—”
Cutting the sentence off sharply, he pulled back on the reins with all his strength. Star slid forward on stiffened legs, reared, and came to rest within a foot of the edge of the gully. From where Roy sat, it appeared that the pony’s head hung over the cliff while the horse himself remained on solid land only by dint of clinging to the earth with his tail, or perhaps with his hind feet, to help him. The boy took a deep breath.