led beside the trail among the evergreen sword-fern--a noisy
betrayer of the mountain's angle. She did not observe that she was
alone, that Bob was not following her. She was deaf to his cries as he
struggled below with the gray, which was plunging against an attack of
yellow jackets, and refused to take the trail.

Johnny stopped, his sides heaving pitiably.

"Oh, can I bear it? Oh, go on; do go on! O God, give me strength to
wait."

Though she tore off her gloves in nervous impatience, still she left
the rein upon the horse's neck, for she knew that the willing beast was
doing his best.

He stopped again, and still once more, before they came to the foot of
the bald, whose slippery, dead grass added another peril to the climb.
The trail ended here, for it was not needed where a sled could go
anywhere over the clearing.

"Come, dear boy. Come, dear old horse," she urged. "Five minutes more
will take us there."

The watch's cruel face told the hour to be twelve minutes past twelve,
but Sydney did not feel so keen a pang as when she looked last,
although it was later than the fatal hour. The continued silence gave
her confidence. Only the bay of a hound in some cove below, and the
yelp of a puppy, reached her.

She was dully dogged. The horse stumbled and scrambled on.

"We can't do better than our best, Johnny. May God keep them! Oh,
Johnny! My dear, faithful Johnny, don't fall! Get up--_get up_!" she
cried.

As he settled on to his side to roll up on to his feet again,--a
process that his labored breathing and the weight of his rider made
difficult on the sharp incline,--she slipped from his back and
struggled on on foot.

She was near the crest of the mountain,--the bunch of chestnut-trees on
the summit showed their swelling buds against the sky just over her
head,--yet how slow was her advance! The sedge-grass caught her feet;
the blackberry-vines tore at her skirt; a rolling pebble threw her down
upon her hands.

In an instant she was up and on again,--she was at the summit at last!
And there, just below the crest on the other side, facing each other on
their animals, like knights of old, were the two men she sought.

IX

"It Needed Only This!"

Trembling she stood, looking down upon the foes below her. Her hands
were knotted against her breast, that heaved with nature's cry at her
cruelty. The thumping of her heart shook her body mercilessly. The
anguish of her soul dried her throat, and