ood. He
listened to the mules galloping, till the sounds had died into the
distance, but he saw now that his captor had heard too, and that the
pursuit would be desperate.

A half-hour later it began, with MacFee at the head and a dozen troopers
pounding behind, weary, hungry, 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 Stay-Awhile, against the troopers and their captain speeding after
Nancy Machell--his Nance, 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 some one.

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 forever, 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 some one to take good care
of him, to make him love life aga