w the posse changing their saddles
to fifteen fresh mounts, and he headed Satan across the Wago Hills, West
and South.

It was hot work. Even the steel-wire muscles of Black Bart were
weakening under the tremendous labors of that day, and as he scouted
ahead his head was low and his red tongue lolled, and surest sign of
all, the bushy tail drooped; yet it was time to make a new call upon
both wolf-dog and horse, for the posse was racing after him as before,
giving even the fresh, willing mounts the urge of spurs and quirts. He
ran his hand down the dripping neck and shoulder of Satan; he called to
him; and with a snort the stallion responded. He felt the quiver as the
muscles tightened for the work; he felt the settling as Satan lengthened
to racing speed.

Through the Wago Hills, then, with Bart picking the way as before, and
never a falter in the sweep of Satan's running. If his head was a little
lower, if his ears lay flat, only the master knew the meaning, and
still, when he spoke, the glistening ears pricked up, and they bounded
on to a greater speed than before. The flight of a gull on unstirring
wings when the wind buoys it, the glide of water over the descent of
smooth rock, with never a ripple, like all things effortless, swift,
and free, such was the gait of Satan as he fled. Let them spur the fresh
horses from Caswell City till their flanks dripped red, they would never
gain on him.

On through the hills, and now the heave of his great breaths told of
the strain, down like an arrow into the rolling ground, and now they
galloped beside the Asper banks. The master looked darkly upon that
water.

Ten days before, when the snows had not yet reached the climax of
melting, ten days later when that climax was overpassed, the Asper would
have been fordable, but now a brown flood stormed along the gully, ate
away the banks, undermined the willows here and there, and rolled stones
larger than a man could lift. It went with an angry shouting as if it
defied the fugitive. It was narrow, maddeningly narrow, almost small
enough to attempt a leap across to the safety of the thickets on the
farther side, but the force of the water alone was enough to warn the
bravest swimmer away, and here and there, like teeth in the mouth of the
shark, jagged stones cut the surface with white foam streaking out below
them; as if to prove its power, even while Dan turned South along the
bank a dead trunk shot down the stream and split