a word across his shoulder to his companion
behind.

"Someone coming," he said, in a deep, hoarse voice.

The second man beat his horse's flanks with his heels, and drew
abreast.

"I can't see," he replied, shading his eyes from the light of the
moon, which, at that moment, shone out from behind a cloud.

The other pointed beyond the culvert.

"There. Riding like hell. Gee! Look--it's--trouble."

Bill Bryant now discerned the hazy outline of a moving figure. It
seemed to him that whoever, or whatever it was, it was aware of their
approach and desirous of avoiding them. The moving object had suddenly
left the trail. It had taken to the grass, and was heading straight
for the miry slough.

"The fool. The madman," muttered Charlie. "Does he know what he's
making for?"

"Is it--a stream, Charlie?"

Bill's question seemed to irritate his brother.

"Stream?--Damn it, it's mire. His horse'll throw himself. Who----?"

He leaned forward in the saddle searching the distance for the
identity of the oncoming horseman. His horse shot forward, and Bill's
was hard put to it to keep pace.

"Can't we shout a warning?" cried Bill, caught in his brother's
anxious excitement.

"Warning be damned," snapped Charlie over his shoulder. "This is no
time to be shouting around. We don't----Hallo! He's realized where
he's heading. He's----. Oh, the hopeless, seven sorts of damned idiot.
Look! Look at that! There he goes. Poor devil, what a smash. Hurry
up!"

The two men made a further call upon their horses, urged by the sight
of the horseman beyond the slough. He had crashed headlong into the
half-dry watercourse at the very edge of the culvert.

The man's disaster was quite plain, even at that distance. He had
evidently been unaware of his danger in leaving the trail for a
cross-country run to avoid those he saw approaching him. As he came
down to the slough, all too late he had realized whither he was
heading. Then, instead of keeping on, and taking his chances of
getting through the mire, he had made a frantic effort to swing his
horse aside and regain the culvert. His reckless speed had been his
undoing. His impetus had been so great that the poor beast under him
had only the more surely plunged to disaster, from the very magnitude
of its effort to avoid it.

Charlie was the first to reach the culvert. In a moment he was out of
the saddle.

The stranger's floundering horse struggled, and finally scrambled to
its feet