Yes, John Brent, you were right when you called Luggernel Alley a wonder of our continent.
I remember it now,—I only saw it then;—for those strong scenes of nature assault the soul whether it will or no, fight in against affirmative or negative resistance, and bide their time to be admitted as dominant over the imagination. It seemed to me then that I was not noticing how grand the precipices, how stupendous the cleavages, how rich and gleaming the rock faces in Luggernel Alley. My business was not to stare about, but to look sharp and ride hard; and I did it.
Yet now I can remember, distinct as if I beheld it, every stride of that pass; and everywhere, as I recall foot after foot of that fierce chasm, I see three men with set faces,—one deathly pale and wearing a bloody turban,—all galloping steadily on, on an errand to save and to slay.
Terrible riding it was! A pavement of slippery, sheeny rock; great beds of loose stones; barricades of mighty boulders, where a cliff had fallen an æon ago, before the days of the road-maker race; crevices where an unwary foot might catch; wide rifts where a shaky horse might fall, or a timid horseman drag him down. Terrible riding! A pass where a calm traveller would go quietly picking his steps, thankful if each hour counted him a safe mile.
Terrible riding! Madness to go as we went! Horse and man, any moment either might shatter every limb. But man and horse neither can know what he can do, until he has dared and done. On we went, with the old frenzy growing tenser. Heart almost broken with eagerness.
No whipping or spurring. Our horses were a part of ourselves. While we could go, they would go. Since the water, they were full of leap again. Down in the shady Alley, too, evening had come before its time. Noon’s packing of hot air had been dislodged by a mountain breeze drawing through. Horses and men were braced and cheered to their work; and in such riding as that, the man and the horse must think together and move together,—eye and hand of the rider must choose and command, as bravely as the horse executes. The blue sky was overhead, the red sun upon the castellated walls a thousand feet above us, the purpling chasm opened before. It was late, these were the last moments. But we should save the lady yet.
“Yes,” our hearts shouted to us, “we shall save her yet.”
An arroyo, the channel of a dry torrent, followed the pass. It had made its way as water does, not straightway, but by that potent feminine method of passing under the frowning front of an obstacle, and leaving the dull rock staring there, while the wild creature it would have held is gliding away down the valley. This zigzag channel baffled us; we must leap it without check wherever it crossed our path. Every second now was worth a century. Here was the sign of horses, passed but now. We could not choose ground. We must take our leaps on that cruel rock wherever they offered.
Poor Pumps!
He had carried his master so nobly! There were so few miles to do! He had chased so well; he merited to be in at the death.