CHAPTER XI
BELLS’ VALIANT FIGHT
“We’ll get there as soon as we can,” Dick said. “It may not do any good; but we’ll demand a word and give them an argument. I haven’t time to thank you now, Mrs. Meredith, but some day–––”
“You owe me no thanks,” was her rejoinder. “It is I who owe you. Turn about, you know.”
The big man said nothing, but took a step nearer to her horse, and looked up into her face with his penetrating eyes. He reached up and closed his hand over both of hers, and held them for an instant, and then whirled back into the cabin to get his hat. The horse pivoted and started away.
“If I see Bells before you do,” a voice floated up from the shadows below, where the moon had not yet penetrated, “I’ll tell him you’re coming. So long.”
As the partners dog-trotted down the trail, she was already a long way in advance. Now and then, as they panted up the steep path leading away behind the Rattler, whose lights glowed dimly, they heard faint sounds telling them that she was hastening back to Goldpan. The winding of the trail took them away from the immediate roar of the stamp mill behind, and they were still in the gloom, when they saw the horse and rider outlined for a moment high above them on the crest of the divide and they thought she stopped for a moment and looked back. Then the silhouette seemed to float down out of sight, and was gone.
At the top, wordless, and sweating with effort, they filled their lungs, hitched their belts tighter, and plunged into the shadows leading toward the straggling rows of lights far below. They ran now, doggedly, hoping to arrive in the camp before the meeting came to an end.