Tired, choked and irritable, Harry Ware was lagging behind Ralph, who was now riding in advance alone. Behind him he could hear the voice of Mountain Jim unceasingly urging on the pack animals. Mountain Jim never swore, but his range of words which were forceful and expressive without being profane, was amazing. Evidently, too, his adjurations had their effect on the jaded ponies, for they stumbled bravely on leaping logs and dodging stones with renewed agility every time the guide’s voice boomed through that blackened, fire-swept wilderness.
Ralph had fallen into a semi-doze. The deadly monotony of the half-calcined columns on every hand, the close heat of the brulee made him drowsy. The voice of Mountain Jim fell more and more faintly on his ears. Harry Ware, kicking his pony viciously, passed him.
“I’m going to be the first out of this beastly place,” he remarked with emphasis as he rode by.
“Well, don’t kick any more dust in my face than you can help,” rejoined Ralph, only a shade less irritably.
“Oh, shut up!” snapped Harry, ordinarily the best and most even-tempered of boys.
Ralph flushed angrily for an instant and his hand clenched as a cloud of choking dust was spurned in his face by the heels of Harry Ware’s mount. But the next instant he gained control of himself.
“Pshaw! I guess we’re all losing our tempers,” he murmured to himself, “and it’s a fact that this place would make a saint cross—Hold up there, pony! Not much longer now.”
Content with his spurt ahead, Hardware slowed his pony down to a walk a few paces in front of Ralph. He did not apologize for his unthinking act of smothering Ralph with dust. Instead, he gazed sullenly straight ahead of him.
He was hot, thirsty, and bitten mercilessly by black flies. The lad was in no mood to go around obstacles. Rather was he in that savage humor that rushes recklessly on, although he had been warned of the dangers of the brulee. In fact, the frequent crashing of half burned-through trees, as a vagrant wind caught them and snapped them off, would have been sufficient indication that a sharp lookout was necessary to anyone in a less irritable mood. But Harry didn’t think of this. Instead, he urged his tired pony viciously over blackened logs with quirt and heel.