gait, and it seemed next to impossible to keep him in
sight.

For Joan the ride became toil and the toil became pain. But there was no
rest. Smith kept mercilessly onward. Sunset and twilight and night found
the cavalcade still moving. Then it halted just as Joan was about to
succumb. Jim lifted her off her horse and laid her upon the grass. She
begged for water, and she drank and drank. But she wanted no food. There
was a heavy, dull beating in her ears, a band tight round her forehead.
She was aware of the gloom, of the crackling of fires, of leaping
shadows, of the passing of men to and fro near her, and, most of all,
rendering her capable of a saving shred of self-control, she was aware
of Jim's constant companionship and watchfulness. Then sounds grew far
off and night became a blur.

Morning when it came seemed an age removed from that hideous night. Her
head had cleared, and but for the soreness of body and limb she would
have begun the day strong. There appeared little to eat and no time to
prepare it. Gulden was rampant for action. Like a miser he guarded the
saddle packed with gold. This tune his comrades were as eager as he to
be on the move. All were obsessed by the presence of gold. Only one hour
loomed in their consciousness--that of the hour of division. How fatal
and pitiful and terrible! Of what possible use or good was gold to them?

The ride began before sunrise. It started and kept on at a steady
trot. Smith led down out of the rocky slopes and fastnesses into
green valleys. Jim Cleve, riding bareback on a lame horse, had his
difficulties. Still he kept close beside or behind Joan all the way.
They seldom spoke, and then only a word relative to this stern business
of traveling in the trail of a hard-riding bandit. Joan bore up better
this day, as far as her mind was concerned. Physically she had all
she could do to stay in the saddle. She learned of what steel she was
actually made--what her slender frame could endure. That day's ride
seemed a thousand miles long, and never to end. Yet the implacable Smith
did finally halt, and that before dark.

Camp was made near water. The bandits were a jovial lot, despite a lack
of food. They talked of the morrow. All--the world--lay beyond the next
sunrise. Some renounced their pipes and sought their rest just to hurry
on the day. But Gulden, tireless, sleepless, eternally vigilant, guarded
the saddle of gold and brooded over it, and seemed a somber giant ca