-powerless, even,
to turn her eyes away from the frightful creature that had so rudely
broken the quiet seclusion of the little glade. Behind the steer, even
as the frenzied animal leaped from the brow of the hill, she saw a
horseman, as wild in his appearance and in his reckless rushing haste as
the creature he pursued. Curiously, as in a dream, she saw the horse's
neck and shoulders dripping wet with sweat, as with ears flat, nose
outstretched, and nostrils wide the animal strained every nerve in an
effort to put his rider a few feet closer to the escaping quarry. She
even noted the fringed leather chaps, the faded blue jumper, the broad
hat of the rider, and that in his rein hand he held the coil of a riata
high above the saddle horn, while in his right was the half-opened loop.
The bridle reins were loose, as though he gave the horse no thought; and
they took the steep, downward plunge from the summit of the ridge
without an instant's pause, and apparently with all the ease and
confidence that they would have felt on smooth and level ground.

The steer, catching sight of the woman, and seeing in her, perhaps,
another enemy, swerved a little in his plunging course, and, with
lowered head, charged straight at her.

The loop of that rawhide rope was whirling now above the cowboy's head,
and his spurs drew blood from the heaving flanks of the straining horse,
as every mad leap of the steer brought death a few feet nearer the
helpless woman.

The situation must have broken with frightful suddenness upon the man,
but he gave no sign--no startled shout, no excited movement. He even
appeared, to Helen, to be as coolly deliberate as though no thought of
her danger disturbed him; and she recognized, even in that awful moment,
the cowboy whom she had watched through the field glasses, that day of
the celebration at Prescott. She could not know that, in the same
instant, as his horse plunged down from the summit of the ridge, Patches
had recognized her; and that as his hand swung the riata with such cool
and deliberate precision, the man was praying--praying as only a man who
sees the woman he loves facing a dreadful death, with no hand but his to
save her, could pray.

God help him if his training of nerve and hand should fail now! Christ
pity him, if that whirling loop should miss its mark, or fall short!

His eye told him that the distance was still too great. He must--he
_must_--lessen it; and again his spurs drew bloo