ding brought him into a tremendously rough country,
where the trail at times was nothing more than a narrow defile or
ledge, and sheer walls of rock rose thousands of feet above, their
giant edges cutting the blue sky like the teeth of a mighty saw. Far
below, a ribbon of green and white, the river rolled in its canyon.
Here and there a thin stream of water sprayed down the mountain side,
cutting a damp, treacherous belt across the trail. But at one such
spot Grey's heart leaped within him, for there, unmistakably clear in
the thin soil and soft rock, were the marks of a horse's shoe, not an
hour old. A few minutes later he saw Gardiner swinging round a spur
of rock half a mile further up the pass.

The policeman began to watch the moist spots for the tell-tale
hoof-prints, and invariably their evidence revealed itself. He knew
now that he had guessed Gardiner's course correctly, and it was a
matter of minutes until he should ride him down. He wondered whether
the man was armed or not; it would be an easy trick to hide behind a
rock and pick the policeman off as he rode by.

Suddenly, at a turn in the path, his eye caught a sight which made
him throw his horse back on his tracks. A sheer precipice fell away a
thousand feet below him, and beetling cliffs cut off the sky above.
Across the path trickled a little stream. And there in the stream, so
clear they could not be misread, were the marks cut by a horse's feet
sliding over the precipice.

The policeman dismounted carefully. There was scarcely room for him
to pass his horse on the narrow ledge. Where the stream had worn it
it sloped downwards at an uncomfortable angle. He knelt beside it and
traced the marks of the shoe-calks with his finger. They led over the
edge. Eighteen inches down the mountain side was a fresh scar where
steel had struck a projecting corner of rock.

A thousand feet below the green water slid and swirled in the bed of
the canyon.

THE END.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Homesteaders, by Robert J. C. Stead

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