gony and
despair he would suffer if it so happened that his boy was captured and
slain; and by degrees these thoughts impressed him so that his desires
became centred in one, and that was, to gallop away from the savage
pack, leaving them far behind, and riding on and on till he could rejoin
his father in triumph and tell him that he was safe.

There were moments in that wild race when Chris's excitement grew into
fierce exultation, when the stones were flying, the pony's hot breath
floating back to his cheeks, and the yelling of the savages began to
grow faint; and then again moments when the mustang's efforts seemed to
flag and the yells of the Indians increasing in loudness came nearer and
nearer, till the boy had hard work to keep from wrenching himself round
in the saddle to try and pierce the black darkness to gaze defiantly at
the fierce starting eyeballs and gleaming teeth of those who were
hunting him for his blood.

These changes came again and again as the mustang tore along, now
leaving the yells behind, now slackening or seeming to slacken, till the
Indians' whoops were very near, ringing behind and even passing the
fugitive, to run echoing from side to side multiplying the burst of
cries.

Then all at once the chase settled down into a wilder gallop, as a
feeling of terror influenced the boy.

"We must be getting nearer the stone in the middle of the gulch where I
hid," thought Chris, "and he'll run full into it."

But the next moment he felt that they could not be half-way yet, and his
ears began to sing in the darkness as the yells of the Indians sounded
louder and louder, while the echoes given back by the closing-in walls
were deafening.

Nearer and nearer they sounded--those savage yells--and once more Chris
leaned forward to caress the mustang's neck.

"Oh, go on, old lad," he whispered; "faster, faster, or they'll have
us." And then the whisper, unheard in the turmoil of yell and echo,
became a cry of agony embodied in the simple homely words which told of
the boy's suffering and the despair now gripping him by the heart, for
out of the black darkness came a fresh burst of yells that were horrible
in their intensity, and full of triumph in their tones, as if those who
shouted were certain of their quarry. Chris's heart sank low indeed,
for the end seemed to have come. Involuntarily now both hands clutched
and clung to the pony's shaggy mane.

For just as it seemed to the fugitive that t