remembered, and the next moment they were both careering over the Ridge.

The trail that she had taken, though precipitate, difficult, and
dangerous in places, was a clear gain of two miles on the stage road.
There was less chance of her being followed or meeting any one. The
greater canyons were already in shadow; the pines on the farther ridges
were separating their masses, and showing individual silhouettes against
the sky, but the air was still warm, and the cool breath of night, as
she well knew it, had not yet begun to flow down the mountain. The lower
range of Burnt Ridge was still uneclipsed by the creeping shadow of
the mountain ahead of her. Without a watch, but with this familiar
and slowly changing dial spread out before her, she knew the time to a
minute. Heavy Tree Hill, a lesser height in the distance, was already
wiped out by that shadowy index finger--half past seven! The stage would
be at Hickory Hill just before half past eight; she ought to anticipate
it, if possible,--it would stay ten minutes to change horses,--she MUST
arrive before it left!

There was a good two-mile level before the rise of the next range. Now,
Blue Lightning! all you know! And that was much,--for with the little
chip hat and fluttering ribbons well bent down over the bluish mane, and
the streaming gauze of her mantle almost level with the horse's back,
she swept down across the long tableland like a skimming blue-jay. A few
more bird-like dips up and down the undulations, and then came the long,
cruel ascent of the Divide.

Acrid with perspiration, caking with dust, slithering in the slippery,
impalpable powder of the road, groggily staggering in a red dusty dream,
coughing, snorting, head-tossing; becoming suddenly dejected, with
slouching haunch and limp legs on easy slopes, or wildly spasmodic