We wound down the steep way into the gut, following a road that at times seemed to disappear altogether, and leave us to break our way through the underbrush.  Then it reappeared in a broken corduroy that bridged a bog for a mile, and lifted itself plainly into view again with a stony back where we began to climb the second mountain.  The sun was ahead of us when we reached the crest of that long hill.  Behind us, Thunder Knob lifted its rocky head, hiding from us the valley of our troubles.  Before us, miles away, all capped with clouds of gold and red was the sunset country, but still beyond the mountains.  The gray colt halted to catch his breath, and with the whip I pointed to the west, glowing with the warm evening fires.

“Yonder’s Happy Valley, Tip,” I said, “miles away still.  It will take us another day to reach it.”

“It will take you forever to reach it,” was the half-growled retort.  “I ain’t chasin’ sunsets.  Here’s Happy Walley—­my Happy Walley, right below us, and the smoke you see curlin’ up th’oo the trees is from the John Shadrack clearin’.”

A great wall, hardly a mile away, as the crow flies, the third mountain rose, bare and forbidding.  Below us, a narrow strip of evergreen wound away to the south as far as our eyes could reach, and at wide intervals thin columns of smoke sifting through the trees marked the abodes of the dwellers of Tip’s Elysium.  Peace must be there, if peace dwells in a land where all that breaks the stillness seems the drifting of the smoke through the pine boughs.  The mountain’s shadow was over it and deepening fast, warning us to hurry before the road was lost in blackness.  But away off there in the west, where a half score of peaks lifted their summits above the nearer ranges, all purple and gold and red, a heap of cloud coals glowed warm and beautiful over the sunset land.  My heart yearned for that land, but I had to turn from the contemplation of its distant joys to the cold, gloomy reality below me.

The whip fell sharply across the gray colt’s back, and he jumped ahead.  Down the steep slope, over rocks and ruts we clattered, the buggy swinging to and fro, and Tip holding fast with both hands, muttering warnings.  The gray colt broke into a run.  All my strength failed to check him.  Faster and faster we went, and now Tip was swearing.  I prayed for a level stretch or a bit of a hill, for the wagon had run away too, and where the wagon and the horse join in a mad flight there must come a sudden ending to their career.  The mountain-road offered me no hope.  Steeper and steeper it was as we dashed on.  Tip became very quiet.  Once I glanced from the fleeing horse to him, and I saw that his face was white and set.

“Get out, Tip,” I cried.  “Jump back, over the seat.”

“Not me,” said he, grimly.  “We come to Happy Walley together, me and you, and together we’ll finish the trip.”

He lent a hand on the reins, but it was useless, for the wagon and the horse were running away together, and there was nothing to do but to try to guide them.