When he had gone five or six miles he drew his horse down to a walk.  Then, feeling the intensity of the cold as the mercury was far below zero, he dismounted, looped the reins over his arms, and walked a while.  For further precaution he took his blanket-roll and wrapped the two blankets about his body, especially protecting his neck and ears.

He found that the walking, besides keeping him warmer, took all the stiffness out of his muscles, and he continued on foot several miles.  He passed two brooks and a creek, all frozen over so solidly that the horse passed on them without breaking the ice.  It was an extremely difficult task to make the animal try the ice, but after much delicate coaxing and urging he always succeeded.

He saw two more cabins at the roadside, but he did not think of asking hospitality at either.  The night was now far advanced and he wished to put many more miles between him and the Leffingwell home before he sought rest again.

He mounted his horse once more, and increased his speed.  Now the reaction came after so much exertion and excitement.  He began to feel depressed.  He was very young and he had no comrade.  The loneliness of the winter night in a country full of dangers was appalling.  It seemed to him, as his heart sank, that all things had conspired against him.  But the moment of despair was brief.  He summoned his courage anew and rode on bravely, although the sense of loneliness in its full power remained.

The moonlight was quite bright.  The sky was a deep silky blue, in which myriads of cold stars shone and danced.  By and by he skirted for a while the banks of a small river, which he knew flowed southward into the Cumberland, and which would not cross his path.  The rays of the moonlight on its frozen surface looked like darts of cold steel.

He left the river presently and the road bent a little toward the north.  Then the skies darkened somewhat but lightened again as the dawn began to come.  The red but cold edge of the sun appeared above the mountains that he had left behind, and then the morning came, pale and cold.

Dick stopped at a little brook, broke the ice and drank, letting his horse drink after him.  Then he ate heartily of the cold bread and meat in his knapsack.  Pitying his horse he searched until he found a little grass not yet killed by winter in the lee of the hill, and waited until he cropped it all.

He mounted and resumed his journey through a country in which the hills were steadily becoming lower, with larger stretches of level land appearing between them.  By night he should be beyond the last low swell of the mountains and into the hill region proper.  As he calculated distances his heart gave a great thump.  He was to locate Buell some distance north of Green River, and his journey would take him close to Pendleton.

The boy was torn by great and conflicting emotions.  He would carry out with his life the task that Thomas had assigned to him, and yet he wished to stop near Pendleton, if only for an hour.