“Then,” said Banks, and smiled grimly, “I guess it’s up to me to back.”  He started to return to the machine but paused to add over his shoulder:  “It’s all right; don’t you be scared.  No matter what happens, you forget it and drive straight ahead.”

But destiny, who had scourged and thwarted the little man so many years, was in a humorous mood that day.  The little red car backed down from the bend in zigzag spurts, grazing the bluff, sheering off to coast the river-ward brink; then, in the final instant, when the machine failed to respond to the lever speedily enough, a spur of rock jutting beyond the roadway eased the outer wheel.  It rolled up, all but over, while the next tire met the obstruction and caught.  Banks laughed.  “Hooray!” he piped.  “Now swing the corner, lady!  All circle to the left.”

“Get up!” the driver shrilled.  “Get up, now, Duke, you imp!” And the leader, balking suspiciously at the explosive machine, felt a smart touch of the whip.  He plunged, sidled against the bluff and broke by.  There was barely room to make that turn; the tailboard of the wagon, grating, left a long blemish on the bright body of the car, but as the load rolled on down the incline, Banks churned gayly up around the bend.

In less than an hour Hesperides Vale stretched behind him, and the bold front of Cerberus lifted holding the gap.  Tisdale had warned him of the barbed-wire fence, and while he cautiously rounded the mountain, his old misgiving rose.  What though he had made good; what though the Iditarod had filled his poke many times over, the north had taken heavy toll.  He had left his youth up there, and what would this smart little automobile count against a whole right hand?  And this trunkful of clothes—­what would it weigh against a good-sized man?  Still, still, though she might have taken her pick of ’em all, Annabel had never married, and she had kept his goats.  Then he remembered Tisdale had said that she too had had a hard fight, and the years must have changed her.  And hadn’t she herself told him, in that letter he carried in his breast pocket, that if he cared to come and see the goats, he would find his investment was turning out fine, but he needn’t expect she had kept her own good looks?

The little man smiled with returning confidence and, lifting his glance, saw the cabin and the browsing flock cut off by the barbed-wire fence from the road.  Then as he brought the car to a stop, the collie flew barking against the wicket, and a gaunt woman rose from a rock and stood shading her eyes from the morning sun.

He sprang down and spoke to the dog, and instantly his tone quieted the collie, but the woman came nearer to point at the sign.  “You better read that,” she threatened.

His hand dropped from the wicket, and he stood staring at her across the barbed wire.  “I was looking for a lady,” he said slowly, “but I guess likely I’ve made a mistake.”

She came another step and, again shading her eyes, stared back.  A look half eager, half wistful, trembled for a moment through the forbidding tenseness of her face.  “All the men I’ve seen in automobiles up here were looking for land,” she replied defiantly.