The Furnace of Gold Part 3

They were nearing the summit of the pa.s.s. It was still a thousand feet below the snow. To the left a mighty chasm trenched the adamant, its bottom lowered away to depths of mysterious blue. Its side, above which the three stout ponies picked their way, was a jagged set of terraces, over the brink of which the descents were perpendicular.

Rising as if to bar the way, the crowning terrace apparently ended the trail against all further advance. Here Van finally halted, dismounted, and waited for the advent of his charges.

Beth rode up uncertainly, her brown eyes closely scrutinizing his face.

It appeared as if they had come to the end of everything--the place for leaping off into downward s.p.a.ce.

"Let me see if the cinches are tight," said the horseman quietly, and he looked to the girth of her saddle.

It was found to be in a satisfactory condition. The girth on the bay he tightened, carelessly pushing Elsa's foot and the stirrup aside for the purpose.

His own horse now showed unmistakable signs of weariness. He had traveled some twenty odd miles to arrive at Dave's before undertaking this present bit of hardship. Since then Van had pushed him to the limit of his strength and speed, in the effort to reach Goldite with the smallest possible delay.

If a sober expression of sympathy came for a second in the horseman's steady eyes, as he glanced where his pony was standing, it quickly gave way to something more inscrutable as he looked up at Beth, in advancing once more to the fore.

"Both of you give them the reins," he instructed quietly. "Just drop them down. Let the bronchos pick the trail." He paused, then added, as if on second thought, "Shut your eyes if you find you're getting dizzy--don't look down."

Beth turned slightly pale, in antic.i.p.ation of some ordeal, undoubtedly imminent, but the light in her eyes was one of splendid courage. She might feel they were all at the gate of something awful, but her nature rose to meet it. She said nothing; she simply obeyed directions and looked with new emotions on the somewhat drooping mare to whom her own safety was entrusted.

Van was once more in his saddle. He started, and the ponies behind resumed their faithful plodding at his heels.

A few rods ahead they encountered a change, and Beth could scarcely repress a gasp of surprise and apprehension. The trail was laid upon the merest granite shelf, above that terrible chasm. She was terrified, frankly. The man and pony in the lead were cut with startling sharpness against the gray of the rock--the calico coloring, the muscular intensity, the bending of the man to every motion--as they balanced with terrifying slenderness above the pit of death.

For a moment the girl thought nothing of herself and of how she too must pa.s.s that awful brink, for all her concern was focused on the man.

Then she realized what she must do--was doing--as her roan mare followed on. She was almost upon it herself!

Her hand flew down to the reins to halt the pony, involuntarily. A wild thought of turning and fleeing away from this shelf of destruction launched itself upon her mind. It was folly--a thing impossible.

There was nothing to do but go on. Shutting her eyes and holding her breath she felt the mare beneath her tremulously moving forward, smelling out the places of security whereon to rest her weight.

Elsa, sublimely unresponsive, alike to the grandeur or the danger of the place, rode as placidly here as in the valley.

They pa.s.sed the first of the shelf-like brinks, traversed a safer contour of the wall, and were presently isolated upon the second bridge of granite, which was also the last, much longer than the first, but perhaps not so narrow or winding.

Van had perspired in nervous tension, as the two women rode above the chasm. Men had gone down here to oblivion. He was easier now, more careless of himself and horse, less alert for a looseness in the granite ma.s.s, as he turned in his saddle to look backward.

Suddenly, with a horrible sensation in his vitals, he felt his pony crumpling beneath him, even as he heard Beth sound a cry.

A second later he was going, helplessly, with the air-rush in his ears and the pony's quiver shivering up his spine. All bottomless s.p.a.ce seemed to open where they dropped. He kicked loose the stirrups, even as the pony struck upon the first narrow terrace, ten feet down, and felt the helpless animal turned hoofs and belly upward by the blow.

He had thrust himself free--apart from the horse--but could not cling to the rotten ledge for more than half a second. Then down once more he was falling, as before, only a heart-beat later than the pinto.

Out of the lip of the next shelf below the pony's weight tore a jagged fragment. The animal's neck was broken, and he and the stone-ma.s.s plunged on downward together.

Van half way fell through a stubborn bush--that clung with the mysterious persistency of life to a handful of soil in a crevice--and his strong hands closed upon its branches.

He was halted with a jolt. The pony hurtled loosely, grotesquely down the abyss, bounding from impacts with the terraces, and was presently lost to mortal sight in the dust and debris he carried below for a shroud. Sounds of his striking--dull, leaden sounds, tremendous in the all-pervading silence--came clearly up to the top. Then Van found his feet could be rested on the shelf, and he let himself relax to ease his arms.

CHAPTER III

A RESCUE

Beth had uttered that one cry only, as man and horse careened above the pit. She now sat dumbly staring where the two had disappeared.

Nothing could she see of Van or his pony. A chill of horror attacked her, there in the blaze of the sun. It was not, even then, so much of herself and Elsa she was thinking--two helpless women, lost in this place of terrible silence; she was smitten by the fate of their guide.

Van, for his part, looked about as best he might, observing his situation comprehensively. He was safe for the moment. The ledge whereon he was bearing a portion of his weight was narrow and crumbling with old disintegration. The shrub to which he clung was as tough as wire cable, and had once been stoutly rooted in the crevice. Now, however, its hold had been weakened by the heavy strain upon it, and yet he must continue to trust a part of his weight to its branches.

There was nothing, positively nothing, by which he could hope to climb to the trail up above.

He deliberately rested and fostered his breath, not a trifle of which had been jolted in violence from his body. Presently he raised his voice and called out, as cheerfully as possible:

"Ship ahoy! Hullo--Miss Laughing Water!"

For a moment there was no response. Beth was to utterly overcome to speak. She hardly dared believe it was his call she heard, issuing up from the tomb. She feared that her hope, her frantic imagination, her wish to have it so, had conjured up a voice that had no genuine existence. Her lips moved, but made no audible sound. She trembled violently. Van called again, with more of his natural power.

"Hullo! Hullo! Miss Beth--are you up there on the trail?"

"Oh, yes! Oh! what shall I do?" cried Beth in a sudden outburst of relief and pent-up emotions. "Tell me what to do!"

Van knew she was rather near at hand. The bridge and trail were certainly no more than twenty-five feet above his head. He could make her hear with little effort.

"Brace up and keep your nerve," he instructed. "We're O.K. up to date.

Just ride ahead till you come to the flat. Let Elsa hold your mare.

Can you hear me plainly?"

"Oh! yes--yes--then what next?" replied the worried girl.

Van resumed calmly: "You'll find a rawhide rope on Elsa's saddle. Come back with that, on foot. Then I'll tell you what to do. Don't try to hurry; take your time, and don't worry." After a moment, as he got no reply, he added: "Have you started?"

Beth had not budged her mare, for terror of what she must do. She was fortifying all her resolution. She answered with genuine bravery:

"Yes--I--I'll do what you say."

She took up the reins. Her pale face was set, but she did not close her eyes to cross the dizzying brink. The mare went forward--and Elsa's bay resumed his patient tagging, up to and past the fateful place where a part of the shelf-edge, having been dislodged, had let Van's pony fall.

For ten age-long minutes Van waited on his ledge, feeling the treacherous, rotted stuff break silently away beneath his feet. The shrub, too, was showing an earthy bit of root as it slowly but certainly relinquished its hold on the substance which the crevice had divided. The man could almost have calculated how many seconds the shelf and the shrub could sustain their living burden.

Then Beth returned. She had left her maid with the horses; she held the la.s.so in her hand. To creep on foot along the granite bridge was taxing the utmost of her courage. She could not ascertain precisely where it was that the horseman was waiting below. She was guided only by the broken ledge, where pony and all had disappeared. Therefore, she called to him weakly.

"Mr. Van--Mr. Van--where are you?"

Van's heart turned over in his breast.

"Just below that split boulder in the trail," he answered cheerily.

"Go to that."

A silence succeeded, then he heard, in tremulous accents:

"I'm here--but how am I going to tie the rope?"