Hap Smith came in from the barn while she was eating.  He was going to start right away.  There was no use, however, in her attempting to make the rest of the trip with him.  His other passengers would lie over here for a day or two.  She looked at him curiously:  why should she not go on?  It certainly was not pleasant to think of remaining in these cramped quarters indefinitely.

Hap Smith, hastily eating hot cakes and ham, answered briefly and to the point.  Mountain streams were all up, filling their narrow beds, spilling over.  A rain like this downpour brought them up in a few hours; it would stop raining presently and they’d go down as fast as they had risen.  Just two miles from the road house was the biggest stream of all to negotiate, being the upper waters of Alder Creek.  It was up to Hap to make it because he represented a certain Uncle Samuel who was not to be stopped by hell or high water; literally that.  He’d tie his mail bags in; leave all extras at Poke Drury’s, drive his horses into the turbulent river high above the ford and ... make it somehow.  It was up to her to stay here.

He gobbled down his breakfast, rolled a fat brown cigarette, buttoned up his coat and went out to his stage.  Before he could snap back his brake she was at his side.

“My business is as important to me as Uncle Samuel’s is to him,” she told him in a steady, matter-of-fact voice.  “What is more, I have paid my fare and mean to go through with you.”

He saw that she did mean it.  He expostulated, but briefly.  He was behind time, he knew that already they had sought to argue with her in the house, he recognized the futility of further argument.  He had a wife of his own, had Hap Smith.  He grunted his displeasure with the arrangement, informed her curtly that it was up to her and that, if they went under, his mail bags would require all of his attention, shrugged his two shoulders at once and high up, released his brake and went clattering down the rocky road.  The girl cast a quick look behind her as they drew away from the road house; she had not seen Buck Thornton this morning and wondered if he had been loitering about the barn or had turned back into the mountains or had ridden ahead.

Alder Creek was a mad rush and swirl of muddy water; the swish and hiss of it smote their ears five minutes before they saw the brown, writhing thing itself.  The girl tensed on her seat; her breathing was momentarily suspended; her cheek went a little pale.  Then, conscious of a quick measuring look from the stage driver, she said as quietly as she could: 

“It doesn’t look inviting, does it?”

Hap Smith grunted and gave his attention forthwith and solely to the dexterous handling of his tugging reins.  He knew the crossing; had made it with one sort of a team and another many times in his life.  But he had never seen it so swollen and threatening and he had never heard its hissing sound upgathered into such a booming roar as now greeted them.  He stopped his team and looked from under drawn brows at the water.