The horse managed a precarious roll where the trail widened a trifle and stayed level for a brief space, and then he cropped without enthusiasm at the sere grass. Ginger ate her substantial sandwich with hearty young hunger and regarded the rest of her supply somewhat wistfully: she could have finished it, to the last crumb, but she was sure Dean Wolcott would need extra rations. It was an amazing thing: at Dos Pozos, when he had been weak and wasted, she had been hard; now that he was as fit as she was herself, she yearned over him. She had met his weakness with scornful strength, and now she met his strength with a rich and mothering tenderness. Dusk was creeping up the cañon when she flung the saddle on Pedro again. “We’ll do it in two hours,” she told herself, “taking it slowly.” It was hard to be hobbled by a stumbling, tired, old horse when she wanted a Pegasus, a steed who could-- She halted sharply, the bridle in her hand. A horse was coming down the trail, running, plunging, the stones scattering before his flying feet, and it sounded like disaster of some sort. People did not ride down the Marble Peak trail at a pace like that. An instant later Snort came into view and with him came reassurance, for he was without saddle and bridle and a long grazing rope swung behind him. One never tied Snort securely, the girl remembered, because of his dangerous habit of pulling back, and he had evidently become terrorized at the approach of the fire, discovered that his rope was merely wound in and out of a stout bush, and taken to his heels. He halted now, at sight of her, trumpeting as wildly as ever in the days of ’Rome Ojeda, clearly considered the inadvisability of trying to pass her and her mount, wheeled, started up the trail again in the direction from which he had come, remembered the thing that had frightened him, turned again and plunged down the steep incline which led to the cañon’s floor. She could hear him crashing, fighting his way through the tangle of brush and low-growing shrubs and tripping vines, snorting as he went. He was down at last, but hysterical with nerves; he could be heard dashing forward, dashing back, stumbling, plunging into traps and fighting his way out again; shrilly sounding his fear. Ginger nodded with satisfaction. Here was a task; here was a thing to do for Dean. There would be a tremendous satisfaction in bringing Snort back to him.... The stage for their meeting was hastily reset. Not on the tired and stumbling Pedro, after all, but mounted on the historic steed who had parted them and was to bring them together again. “I’ve brought Snort back to you!” It made good imagining, the look on his face when he should see the two of them.