The girl’s heart sank as they went on, for the sand seemed deep and drifted in places.  She felt she was losing time.  The way ahead looked endless, as if they were but treading sand behind them which only returned in front to be trodden over again.  It was to her like the valley of the dead, and she longed to get out of it.  A great fear lest the moon should go down and leave her in this low valley alone in the dark took hold upon her.  She felt she must get away, up higher.  She turned the horse a little more to the right, and he paused, and seemed to survey the new direction and to like it.  He stepped up more briskly, with a courage that could come only from an intelligent hope for better things.  And at last they were rewarded by finding the sand shallower, and now and then a bit of rock cropping out for a firmer footing.

The young rider dismounted, and untied the burlap from the horse’s feet.  He seemed to understand, and to thank her as he nosed about her neck.  He thought, perhaps, that their mission was over and they were going to strike out for home now.

The ground rose steadily before them now, and at times grew quite steep; but the horse was fresh as yet, and clambered upward with good heart; and the rider was used to rough places, and felt no discomfort from her position.  The fear of being followed had succeeded to the fear of being lost, for the time being; and instead of straining her ears on the track behind she was straining her eyes to the wilderness before.  The growth of sage-brush was dense now, and trees were ahead.

After that the way seemed steep, and the rider’s heart stood still with fear lest she could never get up and over to the trail which she knew must be somewhere in that direction, though she had never been far out on its course herself.  That it led straight east into all the great cities she never doubted, and she must find it before she was pursued.  That man would be angry, angry if he came and found her gone!  He was not beyond shooting her for giving him the slip in this way.

The more she thought over it, the more frightened she became, till every bit of rough way, and every barrier that kept her from going forward quickly, seemed terrible to her.  A bob-cat shot across the way just ahead, and the green gleam of its eyes as it turned one swift glance at this strange intruder in its chosen haunts made her catch her breath and put her hand on the pistols.

They were climbing a long time—­it seemed hours to the girl—­when at last they came to a space where a better view of the land was possible.  It was high, and sloped away on three sides.  To her looking now in the clear night the outline of a mountain ahead of her became distinct, and the lay of the land was not what she had supposed.  It brought her a furious sense of being lost.  Over there ought to be the familiar way where the cabin stood, but there was no sign of anything she had ever seen before, though she searched eagerly for landmarks.  The course she had chosen, and which had seemed the only one, would take her straight up, up over the mountain, a way well-nigh impossible, and terrible even if it were possible.