letter to deliver; he
meant to take it through, though doom itself should yawn across his
path. The hour was late; the sun was rapidly sinking. Van pulled up
his broncho and debated.

Absolute silence reigned in the world of mountains. But if the place
seemed desolate, it likewise seemed secure. Nevertheless, death lurked
in the trail ahead. Barger was there. He was lying in the rocks,
concealed where the chasm was narrow. He had ridden four hours--on the
mare Beth had lost--to arrive ahead of Van Buren. The muzzle of a long
black revolver that he held in hand rested upon a shattered boulder.
His narrow eyes lay level with a rift in the group of rocks that hid
him completely from view. Van was in sight, and the convict's breath
came quickly as he waited.

Van dismounted from his pony's back and picked up one of his hoofs.

"Worn down pretty flat," he told the animal. "Perhaps if I walk we can
make it." He started on foot up the tinkling way, watching the broncho
with solicitude.

Suvy followed obediently, but the pointed rocks played havoc with his
feet. He lurched, in attempting to right his foot on one that turned,
and the long lassoo, secured to the saddle, flopped out, fell back, and
made him jump. Van halted as before. The convict was barely fifty
yards away. His pistol was leveled, but he waited for a deadlier aim,
a shorter shot.

"Nope! We'll have to climb the hill," Van decided reluctantly.
"You're a friend of mine, Suvy, and even if you weren't, you'd have to
last to get back." He turned his back on death, unwittingly, to spare
the horse he loved.

Delayed no less than an hour by this enforced retreat, he patiently led
the broncho back to the opening of the pass, and, still on foot, led
the steep way up over the mountain.

Barger rose up and cursed himself for not having risked a shot. He
dared not attempt a dash upon his man; he could not know where Van
might again be intercepted; he was helpless, baffled, enraged. Half
starved, keenly alive only in his instinct to accomplish his revenge,
the creature was more like a hunted, retaliating animal than like a
man. He had sworn to even the score with Van Buren; he was not to be
deflected from his course. But to get his man here was no longer
possible. The horse Beth had lost, now in the convict's possession,
was all but famished for water, not to mention food. There was nothing
to choose but retreat towards the river, to the northw