Argosy All-Story Weekly, August 9, 1924 — page 123: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

CHANNING COMES THROUGH. wild growth that clung to its walls. It was a dry gorge. It, too, seemed to have been recently created, and Eve would not have been surprised to see a torrent of water tumble out of the sheer wall upon which she stood, to go raging down into the mystic land below. Eve sat, swaying, awed by the majesty of the scene. Suddenly, assailed with a feeling of gid- diness, she wheeled Mazeppa and sent him back the way he had come. She rode for some hours southward. The sun had come up and she had no fear of losing her sense of direction, though she was now in a frenzy of anxiety lest she arrive at Laskar too late to overtake Chan- ning. Noon had come when she reached the southerly limits of the forest in which she had been riding. The land took a down- ward trend, and she thankfully rode down a slope upon which there was no sign of verdure of any kind. Down, down she rode until, gazing back, the slope she had descended seemed like a steep wall behind her. When she at last reached a level she was so relieved that she dismounted and hugged Mazeppa. When she rode on again it was with a knowledge that she was desperately hungry. She had noticed that Mazeppa was rest- less, that he whinnied often, champed im- patiently at the bit and tugged at the reins in an effort to choose his own direction. She knew what was wrong with him; he wanted water. She let him have his head and he sud- denly veered southwestward. In an hour he reached the bed of a small river. He splashed down into a shallow, buried his muzzle deeply, and drank. After he fin- ished Eve urged him to the bank, where he grazed while she stooped, and quenched her own thirst. by cupping her hands. She wanted to go on, but Mazeppa was stubborn. He wanted to graze, and so for an hour she sat in the shade of a tree and watched him. The sun was far over in the west when she again mounted. She was aware that she was lost. She knew that she had only to ride in an easterly direction, however, to SA ‘west of the Circle B. 213 at last find her way to the Circle B. But she had no thought of going back. She meant to go to Laskar. At dusk, far south of the river, she came upon a narrow trail. She recognized it as a cattle trail. The thirsty beasts, seek- ing water, would take the most direct route to it. The earth was cut and trampled by the many hoofs that had been over it. After a while she came to a point where two trails diverged. She paused and ex- amined both of them and distinguished a difference between them. One was cut by the cloven hoofs of cattle; the other had been made by horses. Almost elated, she rode the horse trail. It led in a sinuous, undulating course over the land. She followed it across a level, through a gully, up a slope, across a pla- teau, and gradually downward to another level, When the moon rose she was still riding the trail, though she was not con- vinced that it led to Laskar. It might, but if it did so it would presently have to make a sharp turn northward, for she knew she was riding almost straight westward. She had heard that there were ranches She had heard Channing speak of some of them. One, which he had described to her belonged to a man named Carter. She had heard Channing say the ranch was on the Wolf River, and if that were the case she must soon come to it, for she was certain that the river at which she had watered her horse was the Wolf. Carter, she now remembered hearing Channing say, had a “ pretty respectable ” house. In the idioms of the country she knew that description meant comfortable or pretentious. Four or five rooms, there were. A log house. It was in a little basin near the Wolf. If she could only reach there she could get some food for herself and Mazeppa and then ride on to Laskar. They—the Carter’s—would surely be able to tell-her how to reach Laskar. But she had no idea how far Carter’s ranch was. Channing hadn’t said anything about distance. Carter’s ranch was “ west.” That was all. She judged that midnight could not be more than an hour or so away when the COMmiclooo S (C@) nn