A Horse in Need
He came into the town as a solid, swiftly moving dust
cloud. The wind from behind had kept the dust
moving forward at a pace just equal to the gallop
of his horse. Not until he had brought his mount
to a halt in front of the hotel and swung down to
the ground did either he or his horse become distinctly
visible. Then it was seen that the animal was
in the last stages of exhaustion, with dull eyes and
hanging head and forelegs braced widely apart, while
the sweat dripped steadily from his flanks into the
white dust on the street. Plainly he had been
pushed to the last limit of his strength.
The rider was almost as far spent as his mount, for
he went up the steps of the hotel with his shoulders
sagging with weariness, a wide-shouldered, gaunt-ribbed
man. Thick layers of dust had turned his red
kerchief and his blue shirt to a common gray.
Dust, too, made a mask of his face, and through that
mask the eyes peered out, surrounded by pink skin.
Even at its best the long, solemn face could never
have been called handsome. But, on this particular
day, he seemed a haunted man, or one fleeing from
an inescapable danger.
The two loungers at the door of the hotel instinctively
stepped aside and made room for him to pass, but apparently
he had no desire to enter the building. Suddenly
he became doubly imposing, as he stood on the veranda
and stared up and down at the idlers. Certainly
his throat must be thick and hot with dust, but an
overmastering purpose made him oblivious of thirst.
“Gents,” he said huskily, while a gust
of wind fanned a cloud of dust from his clothes, “is
there anybody in this town can gimme a hoss to get
to Stillwater, inside three hours’ riding?”
He waited a moment, his hungry eyes traveling eagerly
from face to face. Naturally the oldest man spoke
first, since this was a matter of life and death.
“Any hoss in town can get you there in that
time, if you know the short way across the mountain.”
“How do you take it? That’s the way
for me.”
But the old fellow shook his head and smiled in pity.
“Not if you ain’t rode it before.
I used to go that way when I was a kid, but nowadays
nobody rides that way except Doone. That trail
is as tricky as the ways of a coyote; you’d
sure get lost without a guide.”
The stranger turned and followed the gesture of the
speaker. The mountain rose from the very verge
of the town, a ragged mass of sand and rock, with
miserable sagebrush clinging here and there, as dull
and uninteresting as the dust itself. Then he
lowered the hand from beneath which he had peered
and faced about with a sigh. “I guess it
ain’t much good trying that way. But I got
to get to Stillwater inside of three hours.”
“They’s one hoss in town can get you there,”
said the old man. “But you can’t
get that hoss today.”
