one o'clock
Here she was able better to attend to his wound , and brandy , which she always carried , revived him greatly . There was no course open now but to loose all the horses but four , leave three of the wagons where they stood , and drive as fast as she could with the four hitched to the head wagon , to get the wounded man to Artesian Ranch , about eighteen miles distant down on the Julia side of the desert . Never before or afterward in the lives of the actors in this outland drama were the mountains that divided the desert to know such a drive as that . Jerkline Jo had a set of four-up checks which she carried in case of emergency , and by one o'clock four of her big whites were racing down the perilous grade , with Jo holding the four leather lines and operating the brake repeatedly , urging them to greater efforts continually . The huge wagon careened about hairpin curves , skirted precipices , rumbled from cañon to cañon , while the girl , always sure of herself , always sure of her horses , guided it skillfully and laughed at catastrophies that yawned at her every foot of the way . In the middle of the afternoon they raced out on the desert and took up the long miles to the ranch . At dark they reached it , the horses badly spent , unaccustomed as they were to moving faster than a walk .