A NIGHT ON THE MOUNTAIN ROAD

They drove on for a long interval in silence. The colts, sobered by the
sharp pull to the divide, kept an even pace now that they had struck the
down-grade, and Tisdale's gaze, hard still, uncompromising, remained fixed
absently on the winding road. Once, when the woman beside him ventured to
look in his face, she drew herself a little more erect and aloof. She must
have seen the futility of her effort to defend her friend, and the fire
that had flashed in her eyes had as quickly died. It was as though she
felt the iron out-cropping in this man and shrank from him baffled, almost
afraid. Yet she held her head high, and the delicate lines, etched again
at the corners of her mouth, gave it a saving touch of decision or
fortitude.

But suddenly Hollis drew the horses in. Miss Armitage caught a great
breath. The way was blocked by a fallen pine tree, which, toppling from
the bluff they were skirting, had carried down a strip of the road and
started an incipient slide. "We can't drive around," he said at last, and
the humor broke the grim lines of his mouth. "We've got to go through."

She looked hastily back along the curve, then ahead down the steep
mountainside. "We never could turn in this pla--ace, but it isn't possible
to drive through. Fate is against us."

"Why, I think Fate favored us. She built this barricade, but she left us
an open door. I must unhitch, though, to get these kittens through."

As he spoke he put the reins in her hands and, springing out, felt under
the seat for the halters. The girl's glance moved swiftly along the
tilting pine, searching for that door. The top of the tree, with its
debris of branches, rested prone on the slope below the road; but the
trunk was supported by a shoulder of the bluff on which it had stood. This
left a low and narrow portal under the clean bole between the first thick
bough and the wall. "But the buggy!" she exclaimed.

"That's the trouble." Tisdale found one halter as he spoke and reached for
the other. "It is getting this trap over that will take time. But I pledge
myself to see you through these mountains before dark; and when we strike
the levels of the Columbia, these colts are going to make their record."

"You mean we can't hope to reach Wenatchee before dark?" Her voice shook
a little. "And there isn't a house in sight--anywhere. Mr. Tisdale, we
haven't even seen another traveler on this road."

"Well, this is luck!" He