They were climbing a long time--it seemed hours to the girl--when at last
they came to a space where a better view of the land was possible. It was
high, and sloped away on three sides. To her looking now in the clear
night the outline of a mountain ahead of her became distinct, and the lay
of the land was not what she had supposed. It brought her a furious sense
of being lost. Over there ought to be the familiar way where the cabin
stood, but there was no sign of anything she had ever seen before, though
she searched eagerly for landmarks. The course she had chosen, and which
had seemed the only one, would take her straight up, up over the
mountain, a way well-nigh impossible, and terrible even if it were
possible.
It was plain she must change her course, but which way should she go? She
was completely turned around. After all, what mattered it? One way might
be as good as another, so it led not home to the cabin which could never
be home again. Why not give the horse his head, and let him pick out a
safe path? Was there danger that he might carry her back to the cabin
again, after all? Horses did that sometimes. But at least he could guide
through this maze of perplexity till some surer place was reached. She
gave him a sign, and he moved on, nimbly picking a way for his feet.
They entered a forest growth where weird branches let the pale moon
through in splashes and patches, and grim moving figures seemed to chase
them from every shadowy tree-trunk. It was a terrible experience to the
girl. Sometimes she shut her eyes and held to the saddle, that she might
not see and be filled with this frenzy of things, living or dead,
following her. Sometimes a real black shadow crept across the path, and
slipped into the engulfing darkness of the undergrowth to gleam with
yellow-lighted eyes upon the intruders.
But the forest did not last forever, and the moon was not yet gone when
they emerged presently upon the rough mountain-side. The girl studied the
moon then, and saw by the way it was setting that after all they were
going in the right general direction. That gave a little comfort until she
made herself believe that in some way she might have made a mistake and
gone the wrong way from the graves, and so be coming up to the cabin after
all.
It was a terrible night. Every step of the way some new horror was
presented to her imagination. Once she had to cross a wild little stream,
rocky and uncertain in its bed, with slippery, precipitous banks; and
twice in climbing a steep incline she came sharp upon sheer precipices
down into a rocky gorge, where the moonlight seemed repelled by dark,
bristling evergreen trees growing half-way up the sides. She could hear
the rush and clamor of a tumbling mountain stream in the depths below.
Once she fancied she heard a distant shot, and the horse pricked up his
ears, and went forward excitedly.