"It is hardly farther than that to Wenatchee," said Tisdale quietly. "With good saddle-horses we should be able to make it as soon. Do you know anything about the trail through to tap the Ellensburg-Wenatchee highway?" The station master came around the end of his desk. "So you are going to Wenatchee," he exclaimed, and his face shone with a sort of inner glow. "I guess then you must have heard about Hesperides Vale; the air's full of it, and while land is selling next to nothing you want to get in on the ground floor. Yes, sir," his voice quickened, "I own property over there, and I came that way, up the mountain road, in the spring to take this position when the Milwaukee opened. But I don't know much about your cut-off; I just kept on to Ellensburg and dropped down by train from there. The main road, though, was in pretty good shape. It's the old stage road that used to connect with the Northern Pacific, and they had to do some mighty heavy hauling over it while the mountain division of the Great Northern was building up the Wenatchee. It keeps an easy grade, following the canyons up and up till it's six thousand feet at the divide, then you begin to drop to the Columbia. And when you leave the woods, it's like this again, bunch grass and sage, sand and alkali, for twenty miles. Of course there isn't a regular stage now; you have to hire." "Any road-houses?" asked Tisdale briefly. "No, but you come across a ranch once in awhile, and any of them would take a man in over night--or a lady." Tisdale turned to the door. "I can find saddle-horses, I presume, at that ranch off there through the draw. Is it the nearest?" "The nearest and the only one." The station master walked on with him to the platform. "It's a new place. They are working two teams, every day and Sunday, while daylight lasts, grubbing out the sage-brush for planting. It's a pumping layout to bring water from the Columbia, and they are starting with forty acres all in apples." "But they have saddle-horses?" said Tisdale, frowning. "I can't tell you that. The fellow I talked with came over for freight and used one of the teams. Said they couldn't spare it. But that's your only chance. I don't know of any other horses in twenty miles, unless it's a wild band that passed this morning. They stopped down the draw, nosing out the bunch grass for an hour or two, then skidooed." Tisdale paused a thoughtful moment then asked: "When is the next freight due on this siding?"