“Pooh!” said Alice, “this is absurdly easy. Freeman has been telling us dreadful tales all along just to be rid of us.”
But she began to admit that her escort of four strong men was a comfort, as the guide explained that this “rough country” had long been known as the retreat of cattle-thieves and outlaws.
“Do you think there are any such men in here now?” asked Mrs. Adams.
“Undoubtedly,” Ward said; “but I don’t think, from the condition of this trail, that they come in on this side of the range. I suspect it’s too lonely even for a cattle-thief.”
They unsaddled that night on the bank of a stream near a small meadow, and around the camp-fire discussed the trail which they were to take next day. The guides agreed that it was “a holy terror,” which made Alice the more eager to traverse it.
“I like trails that make men quake. I welcome adventure—that’s what I came for,” she said.
Early the next forenoon, as they were descending the steep north-slope trail, Alice gave out a cry of pain, and Adams called to Ward:
“Hold on! Allie’s horse is down.”
Ward was not surprised. He rode in continual expectation of trouble. She was forever trying short cuts and getting snared in the fallen logs. Once she had been scraped from her saddle by an overhanging bough, and now, in attempting to find an easier path down a slippery ridge, her horse had fallen with her. Ward was ungracious enough to say:
“Precisely what I’ve warned her against,” but he hurried to her relief, nevertheless.