Granting that Conrad Lagrange was right in his supposition that the girl
had left with the intention of going to Brian Oakley's, the artist could
scarcely, now, hope to arrive at the Ranger Station until some time after
Sibyl had reached the home of her friends--unless she should stop
somewhere on the way, which he did not think likely. Once, as he realized
how the minutes were slipping away, he was on the point of reconsidering
his reply to Myra Willard's suggestion that he take an automobile. Then,
telling himself that he would surely find Sibyl at the Station and
thinking of the return trip with her, he determined to carry out his first
plan.
But when he was finally on the road, he did not ride with less haste
because he no longer expected to overtake Sibyl. In spite of his
reassuring himself, again and again, that the girl he loved was safe, his
mind was too disturbed by the situation to permit of his riding leisurely.
Beyond the outskirts of the city, with his horse warmed to its work, the
artist pushed his mount harder and harder until the animal reached the
limit of a pace that its rider felt it could endure for the distance they
had to go. Over the way that he and Conrad Lagrange had walked with Czar
and Croesus so leisurely, he went, now, with such hot haste that the
people in the homes in the orange groves, sitting down to their evening
meal, paused to listen to the sharp, ringing beat of the galloping hoofs.
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