t teeth. "I want him so badly
that I'd forfeit five hundred dollars sooner than miss him. Slip
forward, Gillow, as much out of sight as you can, and hide yourself on
the other side of the ladder. Mattawa and I will wait for him here,
and among us three we ought to make sure of him."

Gillow, who stole forward stooping, swore softly as he fell over many
obstacles on the way. The man they wanted became visible, ascending
another ladder across the river. Then, hanging in the suspended
trolley, he moved, a black shape clear against the snow--along the wire
which stretched high across the gulf. While the others watched him,
his progress grew slower on reaching the hollow, where the cable bent
slightly under the weight at its center. Suddenly the car's progress
was checked altogether, and it began to move in the opposite direction
more rapidly than before, while Thurston sprang to his feet.

"Slack the setting up tackles, Gillow. Hurry for your life," he
shouted. "He'll cast the cable loose and be off by the Indian trail
into the ranges, if he once gets across."

Gillow ran his best, where running of any kind was barely possible even
by daylight. He knew that his master was slow to forgive those whose
carelessness thwarted any plan, and that, while taking the easier way
over instead of crawling round a ledge, he had probably alarmed the
fugitive. He reached the foot of the ladder. Climbing up in a
desperate hurry, he cast loose the end of the tackle by means of which
the cable was set up taut, but neglected in his haste to take a turn
with the hemp rope about a post, which would have eased him of most of
the strain.

"Got him safe!" cried Tom from Mattawa, scrambling to the top of the
boulder, as the curve of the wire rope high above their heads
increased. In spite of the fugitive's efforts, the trolley from which
he was suspended ran back to the slackest part of the loop that sagged
down nearer the river. Thurston, who watched him, nodded with a sense
of savage satisfaction. He did not for a moment believe that, of his
own initiative, any workman would have made a long journey or would
have run considerable personal risk to do him an injury. That was why
he was so anxious to secure the offender.

The curve grew rapidly deeper, until the rope stretched into two
diagonals between its fastenings on either shore. Then the trolley
descended with a run towards the river, and Geoffrey ran forward,
shouting, "