Ruth shrank back to the farther side of the car. “You go ’way. I’ll call my daddy.”
He caught her by the frock and dragged her forward. “Cut out that stuff, missie. When Cig says to step lively, why, you get a hop on yer. See?”
She began to scream. He clapped a dirty hand over the child’s mouth and turned to climb the mountainside with her in his arms.
Ruth kicked fiercely, impelled by terror. His right arm tightened on the struggling legs. The tramp climbed fast. He had to get over the summit before Reed came back or he would be in trouble.
At an altitude of a mile and a half the breath comes short when a strain is put on the lungs and heart. Cig panted as he struggled up the rock-strewn slope. The weight in his arms dragged him down. More than once he slipped on the dry grass and just recovered himself without stumbling. Before he reached the divide, he was hot and exhausted.
But he dared not stop to rest. Once, near the crest, he turned for an instant to make sure he had not been seen. His eyes swept the road anxiously. Nobody was in sight.
Ruth twisted her mouth free and began to shriek. He clamped his hand over her lips again with an oath. It was all he could do to stagger with her over the rocky brow.
Here, for the moment, he was safe. With the sleeve of his coat he wiped the perspiration out of his eyes and from his face.
A saddled horse was tied to a stunted pine not far away. He dragged the child to it, mounted, and hauled her up in front of him. A moment, and the hoofs of the cowpony rang out as they struck the stony rubble.
Cig had never been on a horse till recently. It could not be claimed that he really knew how to ride now. But he could stick on if the animal was gentle. The ways of the West were not his ways. He could not walk out a mile from the cabin where he was staying and not get lost, unless he followed familiar trails. For he was up in the high lands of the Rockies, in a district broken with ravines of twisted pines and jutting rock outcroppings. Each hill and draw and gorge looked to him just like its neighbor.