ry, bad-tempered, ready to exact
payment for their hardships and discouragement.

They had not gone a dozen miles when a shouting horseman rode furiously
on them from behind. They turned with carbines cocked, but it was Abe
Hawley who cursed them, flung his fingers in their faces, and rode on
harder and harder. Abe had got the news from one of Nancy's half-breeds,
and, with the devil raging in his heart, had entered on the chase.
His spirit was up against them all; against the Law represented by the
troopers camped at Fort Fair Desire, against the troopers and their
captain speeding after Nancy Machell--his Nonce, who was risking her
life and freedom for the hated, pale-faced smuggler riding between the
troopers; and his spirit was up against Nance herself.

Nance had said to him, "Come back in an hour," and he had come back to
find her gone. She had broken her word. She had deceived him. She had
thrown the four years of his waiting to the winds, and a savage lust
was in his heart, which would not be appeased till he had done some evil
thing to someone.

The girl and the Indian lad were pounding through the night with ears
strained to listen for hoof-beats coming after, with eyes searching
forward into the trail for swollen creeks and direful obstructions.
Through Barfleur Coulee it was a terrible march, for there was no road,
and again and again they were nearly overturned, while wolves hovered
in their path, ready to reap a midnight harvest. But once in the open
again, with the full moonlight on their trail, the girl's spirits rose.
If she could do this thing for the man who had looked into her eyes as
no one had ever done, what a finish to her days in the West! For they
were finished, finished for ever, and she was going--she was going East;
not West with Bantry, nor South with Nick Pringle, nor North with Abe
Hawley, ah, Abe Hawley, he had been a good friend, he had a great heart,
he was the best man of all the western men she had known; but another
man had come from the East, a man who had roused something in her never
felt before, a man who had said she was wonderful; and he needed someone
to take good care of him, to make him love life again. Abe would have
been all right if Lambton had never come, and she had meant to marry Abe
in the end; but it was different now, and Abe must get over it. Yet she
had told Abe to come back in an hour. He was sure to do it; and, when
he had done it, and found her gone on this