That wind on our backs fairly lifts us up the mountain side." Petty had all the easy familiarity of the backwoods.

He treated the boy and man who rode with him as comrades of at least a year's standing, and they felt in return that he was one of them, a man to be trusted.

They retained all the buoyancy which the receipt of the dispatch had given them, and Dick, his heart beating high, scarcely felt the wind and cold.
"In another quarter of an hour we'll be at the top," said Petty.

Then he added after a moment's pause: "If I'm not mistook, we'll have company.
See that path, leadin' out of the west, an' runnin' along the slope.

It comes into the main road, two or three hundred yards further on, an' I think I can see the top of a horseman's head ridin' in it.