But suddenly Hollis drew the horses in.  Miss Armitage caught a great breath.  The way was blocked by a fallen pine tree, which, toppling from the bluff they were skirting, had carried down a strip of the road and started an incipient slide.  “We can’t drive around,” he said at last, and the humor broke the grim lines of his mouth.  “We’ve got to go through.”

She looked hastily back along the curve, then ahead down the steep mountainside.  “We never could turn in this pla—­ace, but it isn’t possible to drive through.  Fate is against us.”

“Why, I think Fate favored us.  She built this barricade, but she left us an open door.  I must unhitch, though, to get these kittens through.”

As he spoke he put the reins in her hands and, springing out, felt under the seat for the halters.  The girl’s glance moved swiftly along the tilting pine, searching for that door.  The top of the tree, with its debris of branches, rested prone on the slope below the road; but the trunk was supported by a shoulder of the bluff on which it had stood.  This left a low and narrow portal under the clean bole between the first thick bough and the wall.  “But the buggy!” she exclaimed.

“That’s the trouble.”  Tisdale found one halter as he spoke and reached for the other.  “It is getting this trap over that will take time.  But I pledge myself to see you through these mountains before dark; and when we strike the levels of the Columbia, these colts are going to make their record.”

“You mean we can’t hope to reach Wenatchee before dark?” Her voice shook a little.  “And there isn’t a house in sight—­anywhere.  Mr. Tisdale, we haven’t even seen another traveler on this road.”

“Well, this is luck!” He was drawing a coil of new rope from under the seat.  “This is luck!  Lighter must have meant to picket his horses.  Did I tell you he was starting to drive these bays through to the fair at North Yakima?  And here is a hatchet—­he expected to cut fire-wood—­and this looks like his lunch-box.  Yes,”—­and he lifted the lid to glance in—­“here are biscuits, sliced ham, all we need.  Lighter must have intended to spend a night on the road.  And here is that second hitching-strap.  Now, we are all right:  the outfit is complete.”

He took the precaution to tie one of the horses before he commenced to unfasten the traces, and he worked swiftly, dexterously, while the girl watched him, directing him sometimes from her seat in the buggy.  Presently he lifted the remaining strap, but before he could snap the hook in the ring, the colt’s ears flattened back, and he gripped Tisdale’s hand.  Instantly Miss Armitage snatched the whip and was on her feet.  “Whoa, Nip,” she cried, and cut the vixen lightly between the ears.  “Whoa, now, whoa!”

The young horse released his hold and broke forward, with Hollis dragging at the bit.  He ducked with the colt under the barrier and, keeping his feet with difficulty, ran hugging the bluff.  Rocks, slipping beneath the bay’s incautious hoofs, rattled down the steep slope.  Finally mastered by that tugging weight, he settled to an unstable pace and so passed the break in the road.