Only once did they meet anyone, and then they managed to slip into a field, and so avoid recognition.

Before reaching the town the hunter branched away into a rugged and narrow footpath which led to the mountains.

Two dark jagged peaks loomed above them through the darkness, and the defile which led between them was the Eagle Canon in which the horses were awaiting them.
With unerring instinct Jefferson Hope picked his way among the great boulders and along the bed of a dried-up watercourse, until he came to the retired corner, screened with rocks, where the faithful animals had been picketed.

The girl was placed upon the mule, and old Ferrier upon one of the horses, with his money-bag, while Jefferson Hope led the other along the precipitous and dangerous path.
It was a bewildering route for anyone who was not accustomed to face Nature in her wildest moods.

On the one side a great crag towered up a thousand feet or more, black, stern, and menacing, with long basaltic columns upon its rugged surface like the ribs of some petrified monster.
On the other hand a wild chaos of boulders and debris made all advance impossible.