Warmed, refreshed, and with hope shadowing his anxiety, Douglas turned the horses southward.  Tom horse was a big, broad-hoofed brute, hard-bitted and not at all enthusiastic about his prospective trip.  But —­he was a stronger animal than Justus and Douglas pushed him sharply through the snow.

The trail through the fields for three or four miles was easy to find in the starlight.  The valley narrowed as it rose and finally Lost Chief and Black Devil thrust foot to foot in a narrow canyon.  Douglas did not enter the canyon but twined upward to the right along the timber line that clothed the ankles of Black Devil.  The moon had not yet risen when the timber disappeared at the foot of the first shoulder.  Douglas pulled up the panting horses, turned back to the wind and rested for a few moments, then put Tom to the climb.  The snow was without crust but it was knee-deep and Tom didn’t like it.  He floundered and snorted, but Douglas spurred him relentlessly and they crested the shoulder without pause.  Here, however, Doug decided to wait for the moon.

He moved into the shelter of a rock heap, for the wind was huge, and, beating his arms across his chest, waited with what patience he could muster.  Where was she now?  Could even her splendid courage stand up against the eerie loneliness.  If only he could see her now, returning defeated, though still defiant.  But he knew that he would not meet her so.  She would not give up while she had strength to pursue the adventure.

There was no view of the peak from this spot.  Before him lifted a dark, shadowy wall, sloping interminably to the remote heavens.  To the east, Lost Chief Range was silhouetted against a faint glow that told of the coming moon.  To the west was a chaos of unfamiliar peaks.  When the dusk of the mountain-slope before him turned to radiant silver, Douglas started the horses on and spurred Tom relentlessly.  And if he had known how to pray, he told himself, he would have asked the Almighty to give him strength for the tremendous venture which lay before him.

CHAPTER XVII

BLACK DEVIL PASS

“They can stand the curse of being women, but they’re revolting against men’s being stupid.”

_—­The Mormon’s Wife_.

Douglas spurred Tom relentlessly until the snow was belly-deep and both animals began to fight obstinately to turn back.  Douglas dismounted and fastened the horses to a scrub cedar.  Then he wallowed forward afoot to break trail.  The wind increased constantly with the elevation, but even higher than its eerie note sounded the wild call of a solitary coyote.  Douglas heard the call but remotely.  His mind was fastened on Judith fighting as he was fighting.  He beat trail until his lungs protested, then he brought the horses forward, halted, and beat trail again.  His nose was bleeding slightly when he at last won to the crest of the first shoulder.