Lockwood, threshing the horse's flanks with the stinging quirt that
tapered from the reins of the bridle, shot from the camp in a swirl of
clattering hoofs, flying pebbles and blinding clouds of dust.


V. THE TRAIL

The night was black dark under the redwoods, so impenetrable that he
could not see his horse's head, and braced even as he was for greater
perils it required all his courage to ride top-speed at this vast slab
of black that like a wall he seemed to charge head down with every leap
of his bronco's hoofs.

For the first half-hour the trail mounted steadily, then, by the old
gravel-pits, it topped the divide and swung down over more open slopes,
covered only with chaparral and second growths. Here it was lighter, and
Lockwood uttered a fervent "Thank God!" when, a few moments later, the
moon shouldered over the mountain crests ahead of him and melted the
black shadows to silver-gray. Beyond the gravel-pits the trail turned
and followed the flank of the slope, level here for nearly a mile.
Lockwood set his teeth against the agony of his foot and gave the bronco
the quirt with all his strength.

In another half-hour he had passed Cold Canon, and twenty minutes after
that had begun the descent into Indian River. He forded the river at a
gallop, and, with the water dripping from his very hat-brim, drove
labouring under the farther slope.

Then he drew rein with a cry of bewilderment and apprehension. The
lights of Iowa Hill were not two hundred yards distant. He had covered