ed out into the dense
gray atmosphere, something whizzed through the branches of the trees
above his head, and a sharp report jarred the mists.

Perhaps the officer fired into the air, merely to intimidate the
supposed criminal and induce him to surrender. But now the boy could not
stop. He had lost control of the mare. Frightened beyond measure by the
report of the pistol, she was in full run.

On she dashed, down sharp declivities, up steep ascents, and then away
and away, with a great burst of speed, along a level sandy stretch.

The black night was falling like a pall upon the white, shrouded day.
Ike knew less where he was than the mare did; he was trusting to her
instinct to carry him to her stable. More than once the low branches of
a tree struck him, almost tearing him from the saddle, but he clung
frantically to the mane of the frightened animal, and on and on she
swept, with the horsemen thundering behind.

He could hear nothing but their heavy, continuous tramp. He could see
nothing, until suddenly a dim, pure light was shining in front of him,
on his own level, it seemed. He stared at it with starting eyeballs. It
cleft the vapors,--they were falling away on either side,--and they
reflected it with an illusive, pearly shimmer.

In another moment he knew that he was nearing the abrupt precipice, for
that was the moon, riding like a silver boat upon a sea of mist, with a
glittering wake behind it, beyond the sharply serrated summit line of
the eastern hills.

He could no longer trust to the mare's instinct. He trusted to
appearances instead. He sawed away with all his might on the bit,
striving to wheel her around in the road.

She resisted, stumbled, then fell upon her knees among a wild confusion
of rotting logs and stones that rolled beneath her, as, snorting and
angry, she struggled again to her feet. Once more Ike pulled her to the
left.

There was a great displacement of earth, a frantic scramble, and
together they went over the cliff.

The descent was not absolutely sheer. At the distance of twelve or
fourteen feet below, a great bulging shelf of rock projected. They fell
upon this. The boy had instantly loosed his hold of the reins, and
slipped away from the prostrate animal. The mare, quieted only for a
moment by the shock, sprang to her feet, the stones slipped beneath her,
and she went headlong over the precipice into the dreary depths of Poor
Valley.

The pursuers heard the heavy thud