always lightly poised and when the
mare pitched forward his feet were already clear of the stirrups. He
landed, catlike, on hands and feet, unhurt.

It had been a long shot, a lucky hit even for a marksman of the
sheriff's caliber, and now the six horsemen streamed over a distant
hilltop and swept into the valley to take their quarry dead, or half
dead, from his fall. However, that approaching danger was nothing in the
eye of Barry. He ran to the fallen mare and caught her head in his arms.
She ceased her struggles to rise as soon as he touched her and whinneyed
softly. The left foreleg lay twisted horribly beneath her, broken. Grey
Molly had run her last race, and as Barry kneeled, holding the brave
head close to him, he groaned, and looked away from her eyes. It was
only an instant of weakness, and when he turned to her again he was
drawing his gun from its holster.

The beating hoofs of the posse as they raced towards him made a
growing murmur through the clear air. Barry glanced towards them with a
consummate loathing. They had killed a horse to stop a man, and to him
it was more than murder. What harm had she done them except to carry her
rider bravely and well? The tears of rage and sorrow which a child sheds
welled into the eyes of Dan Barry. Every one of them had a hand in this
horrible killing; was, to that half animal and half-childish nature, a
murderer.

His chin was on his shoulder; the quiver of pain in her nostrils ended
as he spoke; and while the fingers of his left hand trailed caressingly
across her forehead, his right carried the muzzle to her temple.

"Brave Molly, good girl," he whispered, "they'll pay for you a death for
a death and a man for a hoss." The yellow which had glinted in his eyes
during the run was afire now. "It ain't far; only a step to go; and
then you'll be where they ain't any saddles, nor any spurs to gall you,
Molly, but just pastures that's green all year, and nothin' to do but
loaf in the sun and smell the wind. Here's good luck to you, girl."

His gun spoke sharp and short and he laid the limp head reverently on
the ground.

It had all happened in very few seconds, and the posse was riding
through the river, still a long shot off, when Barry drew his rifle from
its case on the saddle. Moreover, the failing light which had made the
sheriff's hit so much a matter of luck was now still dimmer, yet Barry
snapped his gun to the shoulder and fired the instant the butt lay in