“Sorry to go so fast—but we must get to the horses before dark,” his uncle answered.
At last they were creeping over the treacherous slope of pumice, they were up the southwest shoulder—they were on the lower snow-field which sloped more gradually to timber line and the horses!
“Rope off!” the doctor called.
He coiled it up and hung it over his shoulder.
“Now, each man for himself,” said he, starting down with huge strides, his boots sinking into the soft snow, which had been frozen crust that morning, and keeping him from sliding. The rest followed. It was such a relief to be free of the rope and the danger that they took a new lease of life, and almost ran down the quarter mile to timber.
When they reached the poor hungry, thirsty, impatient horses, however, the sun had sunk behind the western mountains, and the hole of Hunt’s Cove was already dusky.
“Don’t change your boots. We can’t ride down as quickly as we can lead the horses,” the doctor commanded. “Saddle them quickly, and come on.”
In the timber, too, the snow had softened, and the horses sank knee deep. Bennie soon discovered that a horse, which scrambles rapidly up a steep slope, goes very slowly down it, especially when the footing is soft snow and he doesn’t know whether he is going to break through a long way or not. The doctor and Norman, more used to the ways of horses, and knowing how to manage them, were soon far ahead. Mr. Stone was somewhere in between. The three boys were before long so far in the rear that the leaders had vanished. Bennie and Spider could have gone a little faster than they did, but Dumplin’ was about all in with weariness, and they stuck with him. By the time they reached bare ground at the head wall of Hunt’s Cove, it was so dusky they could just make out the tracks. Below them, somewhere on the slope, they could hear the leaders crashing down through the fire scar.
“Come on,” Bennie urged. “We got to hurry. Can’t see the track at all on the bare ground. It’s dark down in the cove already.”
“I could hurry, but I can’t make this darn horse go any faster. Nearly pulled my arm out dragging him,” Spider answered.