on one of the Asper's
teeth.

Even then he felt the temptation. There lay the forest on the farther
side, a forest which would shelter him, and above the forest, hardly
a mile back, began the Grizzly Peaks. They lunged straight up to snowy
summits, and all along their sides blue shadows of the afternoon drifted
through a network of ravines--a promise of peace, a surety of safety if
he could reach that labyrinth.

He was almost glad when he left the mockery of the river's noise to turn
aside for Ganton. There it lay in a bend of the Asper in the low-lands,
and every town where men lived was an enemy. He could see them now
gathered just outside the village, twenty men, perhaps and fifteen spare
horses, the best they had, for the posse.

On past Ganton, and again a call upon Satan to meet the first spurt
of the posse on its new horses. There was something in the stallion to
answer, some incredible reserve of nerve strength and courage. There
was a slight labor, now, and something of the same heave and pitch which
comes in the gait of a common horse; also, when he put Satan up the
first slope beyond Ganton he noted a faltering, a deeper lowering of
the head. When his hoofs struck a loose rock he no longer had the easy
recoil of the morning. He staggered like a graceful yacht chopped by
a cross-current. Now down the slope, now back to the roar of the Asper
once more, for there the going was most level, but always the strides
were shortening, shortening, and the head of the stallion nodded at his
work.

All that was seen by Mark Retherton through his glasses, though they
were almost close enough now to see details through the naked eye. He
turned in the saddle to the posse, grim faces, sweat and dust clotted in
their moustaches, their faces drawn and gray with streaks over the nose
and under the eyes where perspiration ran. They rode crookedly, now, for
seventy miles at full speed had racked them, twisted them, cramped their
muscles. Scotty kept his head tilted far back, for his spinal column
seemed about to snap. Walsh leaned to his right side which a tormenting
pain drew at every stride, and Hendricks cursed in gasps through a wry
mouth. It had been an hour since Mark Retherton last spoke, and when he
attempted it now his voice was as hoarse as a croaking frog.

"Boys, buck up! He's done! D'ye see the black laborin'. D'ye see it?
Hey, Lew, Garry, we've got the best hosses among us three. Now's the
time for a spurt, an