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." Without further ado he placed Beth's letter in his hat, then rode his pony down the bank and into the angry-looking water. Suvy halted a moment uncertainly, then, like his master, determined to proceed. Five feet out he was swimming, headed instinctively up the stream and buried deep under the surface. Van still remained in the saddle. He was more than waist under, loosely clinging to his seat and giving the pony the reins. Suvy was powerful, he swam doggedly, but the current was tremendous in its sheer liquid mass and momentum. Van slipped off and swam by the broncho's side. Together the two breasted the surge of the tide, and now made more rapid progress. It required tremendous effort to forge ahead and not be swept headlong to a choppy stretch of rapids, just below. "Up stream, boy, up stream," said Van, as if to a comrade, for he had noted the one likely place to land, and Suvy was drifting too far downward.