"
When Felipe began his ride it was already a little after nine. Could he
reach Santa Teresa before midnight? The question loomed grim before him,
but he answered only with the spur. Pepe was hardy, and, as Felipe well
knew, of indomitable pluck. But what a task now lay before the little
animal. He might do it, but oh! it was a chance!
In a quarter of a mile Pepe had settled to his stride, the dogged, even
gallop that Felipe knew so well, and at half-past ten swung through the
main street of Piedras Blancas--silent, somnolent, dark.
"Steady, little Pepe," said Felipe; "steady, little one. Soh, soh.
There."
The little horse flung back an ear, and Felipe could feel along the
lines how he felt for the bit, trying to get a grip of it to ease the
strain on his mouth.
The _De Profundis_ bell was sounding from the church tower as Felipe
galloped through San Anselmo, the next village, but by the time he
raised the lights of Arcata it was black night in very earnest. He set
his teeth. Terra Bella lay eight miles farther ahead, and here from the
town-hall clock that looked down upon the plaza he would be able to know
the time.
"Hoopa, _Pepe; pronto_!" he shouted.
The pony responded gallantly. His head was low; his ears in constant
movement, twitched restlessly back and forth, now laid flat on his neck,
now cocked to catch the rustle of the wind in the chaparral, the
scurrying of a rabbit or ground-owl through the sage.
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