She turned and rode slowly back along the edge, looking for the place where she believed cattle could get down if they were crazy enough to try.
"Don't look very encouraging, does it, Blue?" Billy Louise stared doubtfully at the place, leaning and peering over the rim. "What d'ye think? Reckon we can make it?"
Blue had caught sight of the moving specks far down next the river and up the stream half a mile or more. He was a cow-horse to the bone. He knew those far-off specks for cattle, and he knew that his lady would like a closer look at them. That's what cattle were made for: to haze out of brush and rocks and gullies and drive somewhere. So far as Blue knew, cattle were a game. You hunted them out of ungodly places, and the game was to make them go somewhere else against their wishes. He prided himself on being able to play that game, no matter what were the odds against him.
Now he tilted his head a little and looked down at the bluff beneath him. The game was beginning. He must get down that bluff and overtake those specks and drive them somewhere. He glanced up and down the bluff to see if a better trail offered. Billy Louise laughed understandingly.
"It's this or nothing, Blue. Looks pretty fierce, all right, doesn't it? Of course, if you're going to make a perfect lady get off and walk--"
Blue snuffed at the ledge with his neck craned. The rim-rock had crumbled and sunk low into the bluff, like a too rich pie-crust when the oven is not quite hot enough. From a ten- or fifteen-foot wall it shrunk here to a three-foot ledge. And below the rocks and bowlders were not actually piled on top of one another; there were clear spaces where a wary, wise, old cow-horse might possibly pick his way.
Blue chose his trail and crumpled at the knees with his hoofs on the very edge of the ledge; went down with a cat-jump and landed with all four feet planted close together. He had no mind to go on sliding in spite of himself, and the bluff was certainly steep enough to excuse a bungle.
"So far so good." Billy Louise glanced ruefully back at the ledge. "We're down; but how the deuce do you reckon we'll get up again?"
Blue was not worrying about that part. He went on, picking his way carefully among the bowlders, with his nose close to earth, setting his hindlegs stiffly and tobogganing down loose, shale slopes. Billy Louise sat easily in the saddle and enjoyed it all. She was making up in big doses for the drab dullness of those hospital weeks. She ought to walk down the bluff, for this was dangerous play; but she craved danger as an antidote to that shut-in life of petty rules and regulations.