All too soon Carley found herself astride the mustang again. Glenn
helped her don the slicker, an abominable sticky rubber coat that
bundled her up and tangled her feet round the stirrups. She was glad to
find, though, that it served well indeed to protect her from raw wind
and rain.
"Where do we go from here?" Carley inquired, ironically.
Glenn laughed in a way which proved to Carley that he knew perfectly
well how she felt. Again his smile caused her self-reproach. Plain
indeed was it that he had really expected more of her in the way of
complaint and less of fortitude. Carley bit her lips.
Thus began the afternoon ride. As it advanced the sky grew more
threatening, the wind rawer, the cold keener, and the rain cut like
little bits of sharp ice. It blew in Carley's face. Enough snow fell to
whiten the open patches of ground. In an hour Carley realized that
she had the hardest task of her life to ride to the end of the day's
journey. No one could have guessed her plight. Glenn complimented her
upon her adaptation to such unpleasant conditions. Flo evidently was on
the lookout for the tenderfoot's troubles. But as Spillbeans, had taken
to lagging at a walk, Carley was enabled to conceal all outward sign of
her woes. It rained, hailed, sleeted, snowed, and grew colder all the
time. Carley's feet became lumps of ice. Every step the mustang took
sent acute pains ramifying from bruised and raw places all over her
body.
Once, finding herself behind the others and out of sight in the cedars,
she got off to walk awhile, leading the mustang. This would not do,
however, because she fell too far in the rear. Mounting again, she rode
on, beginning to feel that nothing mattered, that this trip would be the
end of Carley Burch. How she hated that dreary, cold, flat land the road
bisected without end. It felt as if she rode hours to cover a mile. In
open stretches she saw the whole party straggling along, separated from
one another, and each for himself. They certainly could not be enjoying
themselves. Carley shut her eyes, clutched the pommel of the saddle,
trying to support her weight. How could she endure another mile? Alas!
there might be many miles. Suddenly a terrible shock seemed to rack
her. But it was only that Spillbeans had once again taken to a trot.
Frantically she pulled on the bridle. He was not to be thwarted. Opening
her eyes, she saw a cabin far ahead which probably was the destination
for the night. Carley knew she would never reach it, yet she clung on
desperately. What she dreaded was the return of that stablike pain in
her side. It came, and life seemed something abject and monstrous. She
rode stiff legged, with her hands propping her stiffly above the pommel,
but the stabbing pain went right on, and in deeper. When the mustang
halted his trot beside the other horses Carley was in the last
extremity. Yet as Glenn came to her, offering a hand, she still hid her
agony. Then Flo called out gayly: "Carley, you've done twenty-five miles
on as rotten a day as I remember. Shore we all hand it to you. And I'm
confessing I didn't think you'd ever stay the ride out. Spillbeans is
the meanest nag we've got and he has the hardest gait."