ade out a line of horsemen--grey,
ghostly figures miles away. Hervey was keeping to his word, then.
But the thought of his own danger did not hold Red Jim Perris for a
moment. Down there in the thundering water Alcatraz was dying!

The heart of Red Perris went out to the dauntless chestnut. He spurred
down the bank until he was even with the struggler. He swayed far out,
riding the mustang so near the brink that the poor creature
shuddered. He capped his hands about his lips and the hunter screamed
encouragement to the hunted, yelled advice, shrieked his warnings when
treetrunks hurtled from behind.

It seemed to Red Perris that Alcatraz was not a brute beast but a soul
about to perish. So much do brave men love courage! Then he saw, a
hundred yards away, that the bank of the stream fell away until it
became a gradually shoaling beach to the water edge. With a shout of
hope he raced to this point of vantage and flung himself from the
saddle. Then, grasping the rope, he ran into the stream until it
foamed with staggering force about his hips.

But would Alcatraz live among those sweeping treetrunks and come
within casting distance of the rope? Even if he did, would the rope
catch around that head of which only the nose and eyes were showing?
Even if it caught could the stallion be drawn to shoal water without
being strangled by the slip-knot? Had Perris been a calm man he would
have discarded the thousandth chance which remained after all of these
possibilities. He would have looked, instead, to his cowpony which was
now cantering away towards liberty in the rear of the flying squadron
of mares. But Perris saw and lived for only one thing.

Down came that brave head, but now with the ears flattened, for in the
fury of the river his strength was being rapidly exhausted. Down the
current it came, momentarily nearer but always with dangers shooting
about it. Even while Perris looked, a great tree from which the
branches had not yet been stripped rushed from behind. The hunter's
yell of alarm was drowned by the thousand voices of the Little Smoky,
and over that head the danger swept.

Red Perris closed his eyes and his head fell, but when he looked
again the tree was far down stream and the stallion still swam in
the central current, but now near, very near. Only the slender outer
branches could have struck him, and these with barely sufficient force
to drive him under.

Perris strode still further into the wild water