A deep wash crossing the road caused Link Stevens to turn due south.  There was a narrow space along the wash just wide enough for the car.  Link seemed oblivious to the fact that the outside wheels were perilously close to the edge.  Madeline heard the rattle of loosened gravel and earth sliding into the gully.  The wash widened and opened out into a sandy flat.  Link crossed this and turned up on the opposite side.  Rocks impeded the progress of the car, and these had to be rolled out of the way.  The shelves of silt, apparently ready to slide with the slightest weight, the little tributary washes, the boulder-strewn stretches of slope, the narrow spaces allowing no more than a foot for the outside wheels, the spear-pointed cactus that had to be avoided—­all these obstacles were as nothing to the cowboy driver.  He kept on, and when he came to the road again he made up for the lost time by speed.

Another height was reached, and here Madeline fancied that Link had driven the car to the summit of a high pass between two mountain ranges.  The western slope of that pass appeared to be exceedingly rough and broken.  Below it spread out another gray valley, at the extreme end of which glistened a white spot that Link grimly called Douglas.  Part of that white spot was Agua Prieta, the sister town across the line.  Madeline looked with eyes that would fain have pierced the intervening distance.

The descent of the pass began under difficulties.  Sharp stones and cactus spikes penetrated the front tires, bursting them with ripping reports.  It took time to replace them.  The planks were called into requisition to cross soft places.  A jagged point of projecting rock had to be broken with a sledge.  At length a huge stone appeared to hinder any further advance.  Madeline caught her breath.  There was no room to turn the car.  But Link Stevens had no intention of such a thing.  He backed the car to a considerable distance, then walked forward.  He appeared to be busy around the boulder for a moment and returned down the road on the run.  A heavy explosion, a cloud of dust, and a rattle of falling fragments told Madeline that her indomitable driver had cleared a passage with dynamite.  He seemed to be prepared for every emergency.  Madeline looked to see what effect the discovery of Link carrying dynamite would have upon the silent Nels.

“Shore, now, Miss Majesty, there ain’t nothin’ goin’ to stop Link,” said Nels, with a reassuring smile.  The significance of the incident had not dawned upon Nels, or else he was heedless of it.  After all, he was afraid only of the car and Link, and that fear was an idiosyncrasy.  Madeline began to see her cowboy driver with clearer eyes and his spirit awoke something in her that made danger of no moment.  Nels likewise subtly responded, and, though he was gray-faced, tight-lipped, his eyes took on the cool, bright gleam of Link’s.