“Tests your nerve!” shouted Petty to Dick.  “There are hard things besides battles to stand, an’ this is goin’ to be one of the hard ones, but if you go through it all right you kin go through any number of the same kind all right, too.  Likely the sleet will be so thick that it will make a sheet of slippery ice for us comin’ back.  Now, hosses that ain’t got calks on thar shoes are pretty shore to slip an’ fall, breakin’ a leg or two, an’ mebbe breakin’ the necks of thar riders.”

Dick looked at him with some amazement.  Despite his announcement of dire disaster the man’s eyes twinkled merrily and the round, red outline of his bushy head in the scarlet comforter made a cheerful blaze.

“It’s jest as I told you,” said Petty, meeting the boy’s look.  “Without calks on thar shoes our hosses are pretty shore to slip on the ice and break theirselves up, or fall down a cliff an’ break themselves up more.”

“Then why in thunder, Blaze,” exclaimed Whitley, “did we start without calks on the shoes of our horses?”

Red Blaze broke into a deep mellow laugh, starting from the bottom of his diaphragm, swelling as it passed through his chest, swelling again as it passed through throat and mouth, and bursting upon the open air in a mighty diapason that rose cheerfully above the shrieking and moaning of the wind.

“We didn’t start without em,” he replied.  “The twelve feet of these three hosses have on ’em the finest calked shoes in all these mountains.  I put ’em on myself, beginnin’ the job this mornin’ before you was awake, your colonel, on the advice of the people of Townsville who know me as one of its leadin’ an’ trusted citizens, havin’ selected me as the guide of this trip.  I was jest tellin’ you what would happen to you if I didn’t justify the confidence of the people of Townsville.”

“I allow, Red Blaze,” said the sergeant with confidence, “that you ain’t no fool, an’ that you’re lookin’ out for our best interests.  Lead on.”

Red Blaze’s mellow and pleased laugh rose once more above the whistling of the wind.

“You kin ride ag’in now, boys,” he said.  “The hosses are pretty well rested.”

They resumed the saddle gladly and now mounted toward the crest of the pass.  The sleet turned to snow, which was a relief to their faces, and Dick, with the constant beating of wind and snow, began to feel a certain physical exhilaration.  He realized the truth of Red Blaze’s assertion that if you stiffen your back and push your way through troubles you leave troubles behind.

They rode now in silence for quite a while, and then Red Blaze suddenly announced: 

“We’re at the top, boys.”

CHAPTER IV

THE FIGHT IN THE PASS