with primitive virtues as well as primitive passions, been similarly
placed, he would have joined his comrades and taken his chance with
them, but Courthorne kept faith with nobody unless it suited him, and
was equally dangerous to his friends and enemies. Trooper Shannon had
also been silenced forever, and if he could cross the frontier
unrecognized, nobody would believe the story of the man he would leave
to bear the brunt in place of him. Accordingly he headed at a gallop
down the winding trail, while sharp orders and a drumming of hoofs grew
louder behind him, and hoarse cries rose in front. Trooper Payne was,
it seemed, at least keeping pace with him, and he glanced over his
shoulder as he saw something dark and shadowy across the trail. It was
apparently a horse from which two men were struggling to loose its
burden.

Courthorne guessed that the trail was blocked in front of it by other
loaded beasts, and he could not get past in time, for the half-seen
trooper was closing with him fast, and another still rode between him
and the edge of the bluff, cutting off his road to the prairie. It was
evident he could not go on, while the crackle of twigs, roar of hoofs,
and jingle of steel behind him, made it plain that to turn was to ride
back upon the carbines of men who would be quite willing to use them.
There alone remained the river. It ran fast below him, and the ice was
thin, and for just a moment he tightened his grip on the bridle.

"We've got you!" a hoarse voice reached him. "You're taking steep
chances if you go on."

Courthorne swung off from the trail. There was a flash above him,
something whirred through the twigs above his head, and the horse
plunged as he drove his heels in.

"One of them gone for the river," another shout rang out, and
Courthorne was crashing through the undergrowth straight down the
declivity, while thin snow whirled about him, and now and then he
caught the faint glimmer flung back by the ice beneath.

Swaying boughs lashed him, his fur cap was whipped away, and he felt
that his face was bleeding, but there was another crackle close behind
him, for Trooper Payne was riding as daringly, and he carried a
carbine. Had he desired it Courthorne could not turn. The bronco he
bestrode was madly excited and less than half-broken, and it is
probable no man could have pulled him up just then. It may also have
been borne in upon Courthorne, that he owed a little to those he had