Cactus barred the way, rocks barred the way, gullies barred the way, and these Nels addressed in the grim humor with which he was wont to view tragic things.  A mistake on Link’s part, a slip of a wheel, a bursting of a tire at a critical moment, an instant of the bad luck which might happen a hundred times on a less perilous ride—­any one of these might spell disaster for the car, perhaps death to the occupants.  Again and again Link used the planks to cross washes in sand.  Sometimes the wheels ran all the length of the planks, sometimes slipped off.  Presently Link came to a ditch where water had worn deep into the road.  Without hesitation he placed them, measuring distance carefully, and then started across.  The danger was in ditching the machine.  One of the planks split, sagged a little, but Link made the crossing without a slip.

The road led round under an overhanging cliff and was narrow, rocky, and slightly downhill.  Bidding Madeline and Nels walk round this hazardous corner, Link drove the car.  Madeline expected to hear it crash down into the canyon, but presently she saw Link waiting to take them aboard again.  Then came steeper parts of the road, places that Link could run down if he had space below to control the car, and on the other hand places where the little inclines ended in abrupt ledges upon one side or a declivity upon the other.  Here the cowboy, with ropes on the wheels and half-hitches upon the spurs of rock, let the car slide down.

Once at a particularly bad spot Madeline exclaimed involuntarily, “Oh, time is flying!” Link Stevens looked up at her as if he had been reproved for his care.  His eyes shone like the glint of steel on ice.  Perhaps that utterance of Madeline’s was needed to liberate his recklessness to its utmost.  Certainly he put the car to seemingly impossible feats.  He rimmed gullies, he hurdled rising ground, he leaped little breaks in the even road.  He made his machine cling like a goat to steep inclines; he rounded corners with the inside wheels higher than the outside; he passed over banks of soft earth that caved in the instant he crossed weak places.  He kept on and on, threading tortuous passages through rock-strewn patches, keeping to the old road where it was clear, abandoning it for open spaces, and always going down.

At length a mile of clean, brown slope, ridged and grooved like a washboard, led gently down to meet the floor of the valley, where the scant grama-grass struggled to give a tinge of gray.  The road appeared to become more clearly defined, and could be seen striking straight across the valley.