“There’s Nixon’s first blunder,” he remarked. “He has a habit of going it blind, and without giving any preparation to the work ahead of him.”
“I hope he won’t meet with any accident,” murmured Mrs. Morton. “That boy’s got a good heart, even if he is a little odd.”
“He’ll always be a blunderer and a saphead,” grunted her husband. “If the stolen horses are recovered, it’ll be Markham who makes it possible.”
Markham did not tarry long over his coffee. Within a few moments after Peters left he was out in the nipping air. Hesther, a shawl over her head, stepped through the doorway to watch while he crossed the trampled snow around the ranch house and then knelt to thrust the toes of his shoes in the Bilgeri binding of the skis and to buckle the ankle straps. He arose presently, and, shouting a farewell to the girl, glided away over the snowy level gracefully, swiftly, with his ski stick biting into the snow and propelling him onward.
“He’s doing a man’s work this night,” murmured Hesther, “and he will win—just as he won at Devil’s Lake City carnival.” Then she went back into the house, to describe in detail how Peters had lost and Markham had won in the winter sports’ contests at the lake.
III.
Puyallup River had many twists and turns in the thirty miles which it covered between Morton’s Ranch and Roscommon. Passing within a stone’s throw of the ranch house, it flowed almost due north for six miles, then, entering the rough hill country, it doubled back on its course for three miles, rounded the base of Rawson’s Bluff, in a four-mile curve, came east by south around the base of Bear Butte, and then curved in a northwesterly direction for the last twelve miles that carried it through the outskirts of the county seat.
Markham, on his skis, could con a direct course to Roscommon, bisecting the river at three points, and finally climbing the butte for a long glissade into the town. That glissade, right into the edge of the settlement, measured ten miles of down grade. The slopes of Bear Butte were smooth, and directly under its crest the descent was steep. A mile of this, and then the course fell away more gently.
Markham, if he made good time to the eastern base of Bear Butte, would very likely reach that particular spot ahead of Peters, for he would have to travel only seven miles, while Peters was going sixteen. Where Markham would lose would be in climbing the butte; and where he would make up his loss would be in the long glissade down the opposite side.