"I hear them; I do not see them," remarked their guide. "Two
horses are approaching."
"How far are we now from the Lodge?"
"A half-hour's ride. We are just at the opening of the gully."
"You will join us soon?"
"As quickly as I make out who are on the horses behind us."
Reuther and the lawyer rode on. Her cheeks had gained a slight
flush, but otherwise she looked unmoved. He was less at ease than
she; for he had less to sustain him.
The gully, when they came to it, proved to be a formidable one. It
was not only deep but precipitous, descending with the sheerness
of a wall directly down from the road into a basin of enormous
size, where trees stood here and there in solitary majesty, amid
an area of rock forbidding to the eye and suggestive of sudden and
impassable chasms. It was like circumambulating the sinuous verge
of a canyon; and for the two miles they rode along its edge they
saw no let-up in the steepness on one side or of the almost
equally abrupt rise of towering rock on the other. It was
Reuther's first experience of so precipitous a climb, and under
other circumstances she might have been timid; but in her present
heroic mood, it was all a part of her great adventure, and as such
accepted.
The lawyer eyed her with growing admiration. He had not
miscalculated her pluck.
As they were making a turn to gain the summit, they heard Mr.
Sloan's voice behind them. Drawing in their horses, they greeted
him eagerly when he appeared.
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