ay it was hopeless
trying to follow the tracks through the sombre shadow; nothing more
could be done until daylight to follow where the man had ridden.

He had remounted and was riding back when the remainder of the men came
up with Brennan.

"The track runs into the bush; there's no hope of following it
to-night," he cried.

No hope? A dozen voices answered him with a flat contradiction, and past
him there was a rush of barebacked riders hot on the trail. They
scattered in a wide-spreading line, riding straight ahead and watching
only for a gleam of the white horse amid the shadows of the bush.

Durham stood up in his stirrups and shouted to them to come back, but he
might as well have called to the wind. The fever of the chase was in
their veins, the reckless dash of the hunter fired by the excitement of
the greatest of all pursuits, a man-hunt. While this held them, they
raced, aimlessly, uselessly, but persistently.

Those with cooler heads and better judgment reined in their horses. Gale
found himself in the midst of an excited throng with whom he was carried
forward for some distance before he could get free.

"He's right, lads, he's right," he shouted. "There's no chance to follow
the track till it's daylight. Don't smother it. Come back."

"Chase him to the range, boys, chase him to the range. We'll catch him
at the rise," yelled one of the men in the lead, and with an answering
cheer the galloping crowd held on.

Those who had remained on the road were starting to return to the
township when Gale rode back. Hearing him coming, they waited to see who
it was.

"They're mad," he cried, as he came up. "If they get near him, he'll
shoot them as they come, and they'll destroy every sign of his tracks."

"It's done now," Durham exclaimed impatiently. "We'll have to leave
them; it's no use going after them now."

He turned his horse's head and set off for the township with Brennan at
his side and the rest trailing after him. At the station he and Brennan
wheeled their horses into the yard while the others went on to their
homes.

"I shall be away with the dawn," Durham said, as soon as the horses were
stabled and they were in their quarters. "It's the old story. That
fellow has had so much luck up to the present he's lost his head. He
wants to show us how clever he really is."

"There's not much sense in what he did to-night; anyone in the crowd
might have had a rifle, and there was no doubt who he was-