Heavy Tree Hill, a lesser height in the distance, was already wiped out by that shadowy index finger--half past seven! The stage would be at Hickory Hill just before half past eight; she ought to anticipate it, if possible,--it would stay ten minutes to change horses,--she MUST arrive before it left! There was a good two-mile level before the rise of the next range.

Now, Blue Lightning! all you know! And that was much,--for with the little chip hat and fluttering ribbons well bent down over the bluish mane, and the streaming gauze of her mantle almost level with the horse's back, she swept down across the long tableland like a skimming blue-jay.

A few more bird-like dips up and down the undulations, and then came the long, cruel ascent of the Divide.
Acrid with perspiration, caking with dust, slithering in the slippery, impalpable powder of the road, groggily staggering in a red dusty dream, coughing, snorting, head-tossing; becoming suddenly dejected, with slouching haunch and limp legs on easy slopes, or wildly spasmodic and agile on sharp acclivities, Blue Lightning began to have ideas and recollections! Ah! she was a devil for a lark--this lightly-clinging, caressing, blarneying, cooing creature--up there! He remembered her now.
Ha! very well then.

Hoop-la! And suddenly leaping out like a rabbit, bucking, trotting hard, ambling lightly, "loping" on three legs and recreating himself,--as only a California mustang could,--the invincible Blue Lightning at last stood triumphantly upon the summit.

The evening star had just pricked itself through the golden mist of the horizon line,--eight o'clock! She could do it now! But here, suddenly, her first hesitation seized her.