DOWNHILL AND UP
The lash of the quirt fell with a swish on the flank of the girl's
pony. He did not wait for a second hint, but started down the steep
slope "on the jump." Before Ashton realized what was happening, his
own horse was following at the same breakneck pace.
Down plunged the two ponies--down, down, down the sharply pitched
mountain side, leaping logs and stones, crashing through brush,
scrambling or slithering stiff-legged down rock slides. It was a wild
race, a race that would have been utterly foolhardy with any other
horses than these mountain bred cow ponies. A single misstep would
have sent horse and rider rolling for yards, unless sooner brought up
against tree or rock.
Most of the color had left Ashton's cheeks, but his full lips were set
in resolute lines. His gaze alertly took in the ground before his
horse and at the same time the girl's graceful, swaying figure.
Fortunately he knew enough to let his horse pick his own way. But such
a way as it was! Had not the two animals been as surefooted as goats
and as quick as cats, both must have pitched head over heels, not
once, but a score of times.
They had leaped down over numbers of rocks and logs and ledges, and
the girl had not cast back a single glance to see if Ashton was
following. But as they plunged down an open slope she suddenly twisted
about and flung up a warning hand.
"Here's a jump!" she cried--as though they had not been jumping every
few yards since the beginning of that mad descent.
Hardly had she faced about again when her pony leaped and dropped with
her clear out of sight. Ashton gasped and started to draw rein. He was
too late. Three strides brought his horse to a ledge fully six feet
high. The beast leaped over the edge without making the slightest
effort to check himself.
Ashton uttered a startled cry, but poised himself for the shock with
the cleverness of a skillful rider. His pony landed squarely, and at
once started on again as if nothing unusual had happened.
The girl was already racing down the lower slope, which was more
moderate, or rather, less immoderate than that above the ledge. She
looked around and waved her hand gayly when she saw that Ashton had
kept his seat.
The salute so fired him that he gave his pony the spur and dashed
recklessly down to overtake her. At last he raced alongside and a
little past her. She looked at his overridden pony and drew rein.
"Hold on," she said. "Better pull up a bit. You don't want to blow
your hawss. 'Tisn't everyone can take that jump as neatly as he did."
"But the others?" he panted--"they'll beat us!"
"They cut down to the right. It's nothing to worry about if they do
head us. They've got the best hawsses. We'll jog the rest of the
way."
"Of course," he hastened to agree, "if you prefer."
"I'd prefer to lope uphill and down, but--" she nodded towards his
pony's heaving flanks--"no use riding a willing hawss to death."
"No danger of that with this old nag. He's tough as a mule," Ashton
assured her, though he followed her example by pulling his mount in to
a walk.
"A mule knows enough to balk when he's got enough," she informed him.
He did not reply. With the lessening of his excitement habit sent his
hand to his open packet of cigarettes. He had not smoked since before
shooting the calf. As they came down into the shallow valley between
the foot of the mesa and a parallel line of low rocky hills he could
wait no longer. His lighter was already half raised to the gilt-tipped
cigarette when it was checked by etiquette. He bowed to the girl as a
matter of form.
"Ah, pardon me--if you have no objections," he said.
"I have," was her unexpected reply.
"Er--what?" he asked, his finger on the spring of the lighter.
"You inquired if I have any objections," she answered. "I told you the
truth. I dislike cigarettes most intensely."
"But--but--" he stammered, completely taken aback, "don't your cowboys
all smoke?"
"Not cigarettes--where I ever see them," she said.
"And cigars or pipes?" he queried.
"One has to concede something to masculine weakness," she sighed.
"Unfortunately I have no cigars with me, not even at my camp, and a
pipe is so slow," he complained.
"Oh, pray, do not deprive yourself on my account," she said. "You'll
find the cut between those two hills about as short a way to your camp
as this one, if you prefer your cigarettes to my company."
"Crool maid!" he reproached, not altogether jestingly. He even looked
across at the gap through the hills to which she was pointing. Then he
saw the disdain in her blue eyes. He took the cigarette from his lips,
eyed it regretfully, and flung it away with a petulant fillip.
"There!" he said. Meeting her amused smile, he added in the injured
tone of a spoiled child. "You don't realize what a compliment that
is."
"What?--abstaining for a half hour or so? If I asked you to break off
entirely, and you did it, I would consider that a real compliment."
"I should say so!"
"But I am by no means sure that I would care to ask you," she
bantered.
"You're not? Why, may I inquire?"
"I do not like to make useless requests."
"Useless!" he exclaimed, his self-esteem stung by her raillery. "Do
you think I cannot quit smoking them?"
"I think you do not care to try."
Impulsively he snatched out a package of his expensive cigarettes and
tossed it over his shoulder. Another and another and still others
followed in rapid succession, until he had exhausted his supply.
"How's that?" he demanded her approval.
"Well, it's not so bad for a start-off," she answered with an absence
of enthusiasm that dashed him from his pose of self-abnegation.
"You don't realize what that means," he complained.
"It means, jilt Miss Nicotine in haste, and repent at leisure."
"You're ragging me! You ought to be particularly nice to me. I did it
for you."
"Thanks awfully. But I didn't ask you to do it, you know."
"Oh, now, that's hardly--when I did it because of what you said."
"Well, then, I promise to be nice to you until events do us part. That
will be in about five minutes. Over there is Dry Fork Gulch. The
waterhole is just down around this hill."
Ashton took his ardent gaze off the girl's face long enough to glance
to his left. He recognized the tremendous gorge in the face of the
mountain side that he had tried to ascend the previous day. It ran in
with a moderately inclined bottom for nearly a mile, and then scaled
up to the top of High Mesa in steep slopes and sheer ledges.
His eyes followed the dry gravelly creek bed around to the right, and
he nodded: "Yes, my camp is just over the corner of those crags. But
surely, Miss Knowles, you will not end our acquaintance there."
She met his appealing look with a level glance. "Seriously, Mr.
Ashton, don't you think you had better move camp to another section?
It seems to me you have done quite enough unseasonable deer hunting."
Without waiting for him to reply, she urged her horse into a lope. His
own mount was too jaded for a quick start. When he overtook the girl
she had rounded the craggy hill on their right and was in sight of a
scattered grove of boxelders below a dike of dark colored trap rock
that outcropped across the bed of the creek.
Above the natural dam made by this dike the valley was bedded up with
sand and large gravel washed down by the torrential rush of spring
freshets. Below it the same wild floods, leaping down in a twenty-foot
fall, had gouged out a pothole so wide and deep that it was never
empty of water even in the driest seasons.