Then, hurrying to her pony, she rode rapidly out of town into the black night which cloaked the trail leading to the pine. She knew that her mother would miss her and be anxious, but the minutes were too precious now to be wasted even on her mother. She did not know what peril Gordon might be in, and her first duty was to him. She was almost wild with anxiety lest the courier should not be at his post, but he was there when she dashed up to the pine.
"Take me to Mr. Trowbridge. Quick!" she panted.
"He's somewhere between Bald Knob and Hatchet Hill," the man explained, knocking the ashes from his pipe. "It's some dark, too, miss, for ridin' in this country. Can't you wait until morning?"
"I can't wait one second. I have found out where Mr. Wade is, and I mean to be with you all when you find him."
"You have, eh?" The man, who was one of Trowbridge's punchers, swung into his saddle. "That bein' so, we'd get there if this here night was liquid coal."
CHAPTER XVIII
A RESCUE AND A VIGILANCE COMMITTEE
At the end of an hour, or so, the lion withdrew and Wade thought he had seen the last of it. He began to pace up and down the fissure once more, for now that his thin shirt was damp with perspiration, set flowing by the nervous strain he had been under, he began to get chilly again. He had just begun to warm up, when he heard the animal returning. He crouched back against the cavern wall, but the lion had evidently lost the zest for such impossible prey. It walked about and sniffed at the edges of the fissure for some minutes; then it sneaked off into the timber with a cat-like whimper.