The man and girl riding swiftly side by
side felt in their different ways according to their different
characters and previous experience the mute command laid upon them, and
for the most part their lips were hushed.
There came the first slopes, the talus of strewn, broken,
disintegrating rock, and then the first of the cliffs. Now the sheriff
rode in the fore and Virginia kept her frowning eyes always upon his
form leading the way. They entered the broad mouth of a ravine, found
an uneven trail, were swallowed up by its utter and impenetrable
blackness.
"Give Persis her head," Norton advised her. "She'll find her way and
follow me."
His voice, low-toned as it was, stabbed through the silence, startling
her, coming unexpectedly out of the void which had drawn him and his
horse gradually beyond the quest of her straining eyes. She sighed,
sat back in her saddle, relaxed, and loosened her reins.
For an hour they climbed almost steadily, winding in and out. Now,
high above the bed of the gorge, the darkness had thinned about them;
more than once the girl saw the clear-cut silhouette of man and beast
in front of her or swerving off to right or left. When, after a long
time, he spoke again he was waiting for her to come up with him. He
had dismounted, loosened the cinch of his saddle and tied his horse to
a stunted, twisted tree in a little flat.
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