The trader's spirits appeared to rise with the temperature. He was in
high glee. It was as if he had escaped some imminent peril.
"We will make it all right!" he shouted to Little Thunder as they paused
for a few moments in a grassy glade. "Can we make the Forks before
dark?"
Little Thunder's grunt might mean anything, but to the trader it
expressed doubt.
"On then!" he shouted. "We must make these brutes get a move on. They'll
feed when we camp."
So saying he hurled his horse upon the straggling bunch of ponies that
were eagerly snatching mouthfuls of grass from which the chinook had
already melted the snow. Mercilessly and savagely the trader, with whip
and voice and charging stallion, hustled the wretched animals into the
trail once more. And through the long afternoon, with unceasing and
brutal ferocity, he belabored the faltering, stumbling, half-starved
creatures, till from sheer exhaustion they were like to fall upon the
trail. It was a weary business and disgusting, but the demon spirit of
Nighthawk seemed to have passed into his master, and with an insistence
that knew no mercy together they battered that wretched bunch up and
down the long slopes till at length the merciful night fell upon the
straggling, stumbling cavalcade and made a rapid pace impossible.
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