whole ranch to gain another half hour of precious time.

For when she broke down the last of the small fenced fields the sun
was already down. And when twilight came, she knew by instinct, the
blow would fall. Yet the distance to the shack was still terribly far.

She straightened the gallant little bay to her work, but at every
stride she moaned. Oh for such legs beneath her as the legs of
Lady Mary, stretching swiftly and easily over the ground! But this
chopping, laboring stride--! She struck her hand against her forehead
and then spurred mercilessly. As a result, the bay merely tossed her
head, for she was already drawn straight as a string by the effort of
her gallop. And Marianne had to sit back in the saddle and simply pray
for time, while the little thirty-two revolver in the saddle holster
before her, flapped monotonously, beating out the rhythm of every
stride.

And the night rode over the mountains with mysterious speed. It seemed
to her frantic brain that the gap between crimson sunset and pallid
twilight could have been spanned by a scant five minutes. And now,
when she found herself at the foot of the last slope, it was the
utter dark, and above her head the white stars were rushing past the
treetops. The slope was killing the mare. She fell from her labored
gallop to a trot, from the trot to a shambling jog, and then to a
walk. And all the time Marianne found herself listening with desperate
intensity for the report of a gun out of the woods ahead!

She threw herself out of the saddle, cast hardly a glance at the
drooping figure of the bay, and ran forward on foot, stumbling in the
dark over fallen branches, slipping more than once and dropping flat
on her face as her feet shot back without foothold from the pine
needles. But she picked herself up again and flung herself at her work
with a frantic determination.

Through the trees, filtered by the branches, she saw a light. But
when she came to the edge of the clearing she made out that the
illumination came from a fire, not a lantern. The interior of the
cabin was awash with shadows, and across the open doorway of the hut
the monstrous and obscure outline of a standing man wavered to and
fro. There was no clamor of many voices. And her heart leaped with
relief. Hervey and his men, then, had lost heart at the last moment.
They had not dared to attack Red Jim Perris in spite of their numbers!

But her joy died, literally, mid-leap.

"Hervey," crie