f. The trail
was five to six feet wide, but the descent was almost headlong, and
down it the horse, urged by his rider, sprang in dizzy leaps; where the
footing was worst Laramie tried to ease his frantic plunges. Stricken
with terror, the beast caught his breath in convulsive starts and
breathed in grunting snorts. Halting and bucking in jerky recoveries;
leaping from foothold to foothold as if every jump were his last, and
taking on a momentum far beyond his own or his rider's control, the
frightened pony dashed recklessly ahead. It was as if a great weight,
bounding on living springs, were heading to bolt at length against the
sheer rock wall across the canyon.

Half the distance of the mad flight, and the worst half, was covered
when a rifle cracked from the top of the abutment. Laramie felt a
violent blow on his shoulder. There was no possible answer; there
could be no more speed--no possible defense; the race lay between the
rifle sights covering him and the four slender hoofs of the horse under
him. Ten yards more were covered and a second rifle shot cracked
crisply down the canyon walls. Laramie thought it from a second rifle;
the bullet spat the wall above his head into splinters. They were
shooting high, he told himself, and only hoped they might keep trying
to pick him off the horse and let the horse's legs alone. None knew
better than he exactly what was taking place above; the quick alarm,
the fast-moving target in the gloomy canyon; the haste to get the feet
set, the rifle to the shoulder, the sights lined, the moving target
followed, the trigger pressed.

It was a madman's flight. As one or other of the rifles cracked at
him, Laramie threw himself back in the saddle. With his hat in his
hand, his arm shot straight up, and pointing toward the abutment he
yelled a defiant laugh at his enemies. In an instant the hat was
knocked from his fingers by a bullet; but the springing legs under him
were left untouched. The trick for the rider now was, even should he
escape the bullets, to check the flight of the horse before both shot
over the foot of the Ladder into the depths. Laramie threw his weight
low on the horse's side next the canyon wall and spoke soothingly into
his ear as his arms circled the heaving neck.

And on the rim of the precipice, high above, two active men, bending
every nerve and muscle to their effort, stood with repeating rifles
laid against their cheeks, pumping and firing