ad between his
hands; and Rina, crouching apart, gazed over the prairie with unseeing
eyes.

Garth had it ever in mind to save the horses, but his impatience was
incontrollable; he made them start too soon; and throughout the
afternoon he urged them more than he knew. The animals failed visibly,
hour by hour. It was more than three hours before they came upon the
site of the noon camp of those ahead, showing that they were steadily
losing in the chase.

To be obliged to stop again two hours short of darkness was a crushing
disappointment to Garth; but the horses could go no farther. He could
never have told how he curbed his impatience throughout that age-long
night. He did not sleep: but an excess of suffering is in the end its
own merciful opiate; and he was not always fully conscious.

With the morning a fresh blow awaited them. Daylight revealed Garth's
mount lying dead of exhaustion fifty yards from camp. In a wide circle
on the neighbouring heights, the coyotes were squatting on their
haunches, waiting for the sure feast. It was colder than the day before;
and the clouds hung thicker and lower. The three of them approached the
dead animal, and looked down upon it stolidly.

Garth set his teeth, and laughed his harsh note. "I will walk," he said
shortly. "I can keep going while you are spelling the horses."

Charley, for the first time, questioned a decision of his leader. "We
can't spare an hour!" he said with a dull decisiveness, in which there
was nothing boyish. "You have got to keep on ahead. Besides, you can't
follow the tracks as well as I can, you would lose yourself. I will
walk."

Of the two desperate expedients it was clearly the better; and Garth
instantly acquiesced. Possessed by a master idea, he was incapable of
feeling any great compunctions at the idea of the injured boy setting
forth on the prairie alone--that would come later. At present he stood
equally ready to sacrifice Charley, or himself, or all three of them
together, if it would save Natalie.

The boy doggedly busied himself making a bundle of his blankets, and
food enough to last him three days. The rest of his pack was added to
the complaining backs of the other two horses.

Garth did not neglect to consider what he could do to ensure the boy's
safety. "Better return to the shack," he urged. "You can do it in two
marches. There's plenty of grub there."

But Charley flatly refused.

"Very well," said Garth. "I'll leave a note