There was no real fear in her--only tension.
Now as she ran down the open way her eyes were alert for every
landmark, and her woodcraft was sufficiently practised to stand her in
good stead. She recognized each feature in the path until she came to
the point where she had first entered it In a moment she was battling
her way through the thick bush, and the tension she was laboring under
took her through it in a fraction of the time her first traversing had
been made. Her pony was standing within ten yards of the spot at which
she had left him.
She breathed a great relief. In a moment she had unbuckled the hobbles
on his forelegs. Then, with the habit of her life on the plains, she
tightened the cinchas of the saddle. Then she replaced the bit in its
mouth.
As she swung herself into the saddle the distant plod of hoofs pounding
the cattle tracks reached her. For one instant she sat in doubt.
Then, with a half-thought fear lest her hard pursuit of the wounded
deer had left her tough broncho spent, she swung him about and vanished
like a ghost into the gloomy depths of the woods.
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