A dozen stalwart stampeders pounced upon Van like wolves.  They wanted to know what he thought of the reservation, where to go, whether or not there was any more ground like that of the “Laughing Water” claim, what he had heard from his Indian friends, and what he would take for his placer.  The crowd about him rapidly increased.  Men in a time of excitement such as this flock as madly as sheep whenever one may lead.  Anything is news—­any man is of interest who has in his pocket a piece of rock, or has in his eye a wink.  No man is willing to be left outside.  He must know all there is to be known.

It was utterly useless for Van to protest his ignorance of the reservation ground.  He owned a deposit of placer gold.  Success had crowned his efforts.  It was something to get in touch with success, rub shoulders with a man who had the gold.

His friends were there in the red-faced mob.  They said they were his friends, and they doubtless knew.  Some were, indeed, old acquaintances whom Van would gladly have assisted towards a needed change of fortune.  He was powerless, not only to aid these men, but also to escape.  Despite his utmost endeavors they held him there an hour, and to make up the time, he chose the hottest, roughest trail through the range, when at last he was clear of the town.

The climb he made on his pony to slice a few miles from his route was over a mountain and through a gulch that was known as The Devil’s Slide.  It was gravel that moved underfoot with never-failing treachery, gravel made hot by the rays of the sun, and flinging up a scorching heat while it crawled and blistered underfoot.  On midsummer days men had perished here, driven mad by the dancing of the air and the dread of the movement where they trod.  The last two miles of this desolate slope Van walked and led his broncho.

He entered “Solid Canyon” finally, and mounting once more let Suvy pick the way between great boulders, where gray rattlesnakes abounded in exceptional numbers.  These were the hardships of the ride, all there were that Van felt worth the counting.  He had reckoned without that far-off storm, which had raged in the darkness of the night.

He came to the river, the ford between the banks where he and Beth had found a shallow stream.  For a moment he stared at it speechlessly.  A great, swiftly-moving flood was there, tawny, roiled with the mud torn down and dissolved in the water’s violence, and foaming still from a plunge it had taken above.

It was ten to twenty feet deep.  This Van realized as he sat there on his sweating horse, measuring up the banks.  The depth had encroached upon the slope whereon he was wont to ascend the further side.  There was one place only where he felt assured a landing might be achieved.

“Well, Suvy,” he said to the animal presently, “it looks more like a swim than a waltz quadrille, and neither of us built web-footed.”