Down, down they dropped two thousand feet, and when they came out upon the fairly level top of the saddle back Racey mounted behind Molly.
"He'll have to carry double now," he explained. "She's two mile to the bridge, and my wind ain't good enough to run me two mile."
It was not his wind that was weak, it was his feet—his tortured, blistered feet that were two flaming aches. Later they would become numb. He wished they were numb now, and cursed silently the man who first invented cowboy boots. Every jog of the trotting horse whose back he bestrode was a twitching torture.
"We'll be at the bridge in another mile," he told her.
"Thank Heaven!"
Silent and grass-grown lay the Daisy trail when they came out upon it winding through a meagre plantation of cedars.
"No one's come along yet," vouchsafed Racey, turning into the trail after a swift glance at its trackless, undisturbed surface.
He tickled the horse with both spurs and stirred him into a gallop. There was not much spring in that gallop. Racey weighed fully one hundred and seventy pounds without his clothes, Molly a hundred and twenty with all of hers, and the saddle, blanket, sack, rifle, and cartridges weighed a good sixty. On top of this weight pile many weary miles the horse had travelled since its last meal and you have what it was carrying. No wonder the gallop lacked spring.
"Bridge is just beyond those trees," said Racey in Molly's ear.
"The horse is nearly run out," was her comment.