Carney's brain vibrated with this presage of the something that had thrilled his horse. In his ears the wailing, sighing, reverberating music seemed to carry as refrain the words of Oregon: "Ride like hell, Carney! Ride like hell!"
And, as if the command were within the buckskin's knowing, he raced where the path was good; and where it was bad he scrambled over the stones and shelving rocks and projecting roots with catlike haste.
In Carney's mind was the cave, the worked-out mine tunnel that drove into the mountain side; the cave that Jack the Wolf had homed in when he murdered the men on the trail; it was two hours beyond. If he could make that he and the buckskin would be safe, for the horse could enter it too.
In the thought of saving his life the buckskin occupied a dual place; that's what Oregon had said; he had no right to jeopardize the gallant little steed that had saved him more than once with fleet heel and stout heart.
He patted the eager straining neck in front of him, and, though he spoke aloud, his voice was little more in that valley of echo and reverberation than a whisper: "Good Patsy boy, we'll make it. Don't fret yourself tired, old sport; we'll make it—the cave."
The horse seemed to swing his head reassuringly as though he, too, had in his heart the undying courage that nothing daunted.
Now the invisible cutting dust that had scorched Carney's face had taken visible form; it was like fierce-driven flour. Across the valley the towering hills were blurred shapes. Carney's eyelashes were frozen ridges above his eyes; his breath floated away in little clouds of ice; the buckskin coat of the horse had turned to gray.
Sometimes at the turn of a cliff was a false lull as if the storm had been stayed; and then in twenty yards the doors of the frozen north swung again and icy fingers of death gripped man and beast.
And all the time the white prisms were growing larger; closer objects were being blotted out; the prison walls of ice were coming closer; it was more difficult to breathe; his life blood was growing sluggish; a chill was suggesting indifference—why fight?
The horse's feet were muffled by the ghastly white rug, the blizzard was spreading over the earth that the day before had been a cloth of gold; it was like a winding sheet.