Sydney did not urge the point, but looked at her watch as they reached the opening where the ascent began.
It was twenty minutes of twelve.
Without a word she held out her hand to Bob. She felt sick and faint, and her companion's whistle was not reassuring.
"They'll probably be late," he suggested, but he remembered as he said it that his father had left home for the meeting-place before he had started to take the news to Sydney.
The trail began in a steep acclivity that soon brought the horses to a walk. When it was surmounted the beasts needs must blow, though they pressed on willingly enough at a half-minute's end. A fairly level bit followed along the ridge of the foot-hill they just had climbed. It was not wide enough for them to travel abreast, and Johnny led with a sharp trot that made clever avoidance of the stones and roots and stumps that sprang into sight before him as at the summons of a malignant spirit.
The next upward stretch was over a ledge of rock from which the winter's rains had washed the soil. A trickling spring kept its surface constantly wet, and its slippery face brought Johnny to his knees.
Sydney uttered a cry which ordinarily would have been one of pity for her favorite's pain. Now it was a note of fear lest the fall might mean delay. But the brave sorrel heaved himself up, and turned across the path to pant after the exertion.
"Are you all right, Sydney?" came Bob's anxious cry from below, whence he had seen the accident.
"It was nothing," she called. "Come, Johnny, poor old man!"
She patted his lowered neck, and he bent his hoofs to catch his toe-calks in the cracks of the rock.