Right was right as
two and two make four in Heaven or Hell, then _where_ was the God from
whom Right, laws of Right emanated, guiding the unwise as laws of
gravity guide the stars?

He didn't know that he had been staggering from physical weakness as he
climbed the ridge of sand. There was the fresh horse. _One of them_
might escape in a night by riding it to death. Then, there was the
possibility of the railroad being within reach. One of them might go
out to the railroad, _but not both_. The old frontiersman had passed
the point of being able to ride; and a very few hours would probably
witness the end of his life. He could tie the old man to the fresh
horse, but the slow pace that would be necessary would sacrifice both
their lives. There was another possibility: the fresh man on the fresh
horse. That way out did not enter Wayland's mind; but he did ask
himself _why_ the outlaws had not come down to the false pool. Why had
they gone on? They were as near the end of their tether as he was of
his.

Then he became suddenly conscious that he had eaten almost nothing for
twenty-four hours and that the quivering air darkening to night rolled
above the yellow sands in a way not caused by heat. Was it saddle wear
or exhaustion that he stumbled as he walked? He looked at the silver
strip of mountains above the westering sky. A fore-shortening haze
swam into his sight. There was the mountain flecked with silver. Then
it had gone into a milky black and pools, pools of water, fringed by
the pines of the North, hung in the blue haze of mid-air,
fore-shortening, shifting like a blurred sieve into the silver strip of
mountain and milky blot, then back again, pools of crystal water, cool
mountain lakes, this time with the trees up side down and figures among
the trees. He knew by the trees being up side down, though he was
dreaming of laughing as he drank and drank, that it must be a mirage!
Then he came to himself wondering how in the world he was sitting on
the sand bank. And why hadn't he kept the tea leaves to put on his
eyes in case of heat inflammation? Then, it tripped almost under his
feet, you understand _he_ did not trip, he had struck at it with his
Service axe--the wolf thing tracking the red stain of the outlaws'
trail along the base of the sand bank out across the ash colored silt
sands. He watched it pausing, where the wind had eddied the dust in
serpentine lines over the tracks, sniffing the air