His spirits rose.
He had no fear of the stillness and the dark.

But one could scarcely call it the dark, since brilliant stars rode high in a bright blue heaven, and the forest on either side of him was a vast and intricate tracery of white touched with silver.
He examined his saddle bags, and found in them a silver-mounted pistol and cartridges which he transferred to his belt.

The line of the mountains lay near the road, and he remembered Bill Skelly and those like him.

The weapon gave him new strength.

Skelly and his comrades might come on any pretext they chose.
The road lay straight toward the south, edged on either side by forest.
Now and then he passed a silent farm house, set back among the trees, and once a dog barked, but there was no sound, save the tread of the horse's feet in the snow, and his occasional puff when he blew the steam from his nostrils.