‘Really?’
‘Shore. Styles change every few years, they tell me.’
It was a long, tedious drag over the grades, and it required all of Bunty’s skill. Rex looked at upside down landscapes until his eyes ached, and he wondered why in the world so much of the country had been set on edge.
Finally they struck the down-grade, where Bunty locked the rear wheels and they went skidding down, with the wheel horses holding back against the firm pull of the lines.
But something went wrong. Perhaps the old leather shoes nailed to the brake-blocks, had worn out, and the friction of iron-shod wheels against wood was not sufficient to hold back the heavy stage. At any rate, the stage lunged ahead, crowding close against the rumps of the wheeler, skidding sideways in the gravel roadbed.
But Bunty Smith was no novice. With a wild yell at the team he slackened the lines, while his long whip curled over the team with a vicious snap. And the team sprang ahead, yanking the stage around, and they went down that dangerous grade, all four horses at a furious gallop, while Bunty braced his feet and sent his lash licking at the two running leaders. He knew he must keep them at top speed in order to hold the stretcher taut.
If one of the wheel horses ever got his front feet over that stretcher, it would throw the wheeler and cause both team and stage to pile up on a smashing heap, either against the inner wall of the grade or down into the depths.
There were plenty of curves. Rex clung to the seat, blinded with fear, as the old stage lurched and skidded, going faster each moment. On the right-hand curves it seemed to him that the entire stage was off the grade, but at the next lurch it was back on the grade again. He did not realize that Bunty Smith was making the drive of his life. He couldn’t see the lurch and sway of Bunty’s body, as he guessed his turns to the nth degree.
To Rex it was a runaway; to Bunty, a case of life or death, speed and yet more speed, it all depending on his control of the running team. He knew that road; knew that he could reach the bottom now, if the horses would only keep their feet. On the next turn he saw one of his leaders swing out so far that there was nothing under him but blue atmosphere. But in a flash the momentum of the other leader had yanked him back to the edge of the grade.
Only one more curve now. Bunty set his jaw and fairly flung the team around. A rear wheel struck a projecting rock, and for several moments it was an even bet as to whether the stage would right itself. Rex was clawing at the seat, fearful of being thrown over the edge; but the stage righted itself and they went thundering down through a cottonwood thicket.