Mad or drunk. Only desperadoes gallop
at night. Halt and speak!"
The pony had swerved barely in time, and behind him the Monterey stage
lay all but ditched on the roadside, the driver fulminating oaths. But
Felipe gave him but an instant's thought. Dobe huts once more abruptly
ranged up on either side the roadway, staggering and dim under the
night. Then a wine shop noisy with carousing _peons_ darted by.
Pavements again. A shop-front or two. A pig snoring in the gutter, a dog
howling in a yard, a cat lamenting on a rooftop. Then the smell of
fields again. Then darkness again. Then the solitude of the open
country. Cadenassa past.
But now the country changed. The slope grew steeper; it was the last
lift of land to the divide. The road was sown with stones and scored
with ruts. Pepe began to blow; once he groaned. Perforce his speed
diminished. The villages were no longer so thickly spread now. The crest
of the divide was wild, desolate, forsaken. Felipe again and again
searched the darkness for lights, but the night was black.
Then abruptly the moon rose. By that Felipe could guess the time. His
heart sank. He halted, recinched the saddle, washed the pony's mouth
with brandy from his flask, then mounted and spurred on.
Another half-hour went by. He could see that Pepe was in distress; his
speed was by degrees slacking. Would he last! Would he last? Would the
minutes that raced at his side win in that hard race?
Houses again.
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