and twisting detached from the pony's
back. Everyone witnessed a blur upon the air and knew it was the man.
He was flung with catapultic force against a frightened cow. He struck
with arms and legs extended. He clung like a bur to the bovine's side,
for a moment before he dropped--and everyone roared unfeelingly, in
relief of the tension on the nerves.

The next they knew Van was there with his horse, shaking the animal's
muzzle.

"My boy!" he said. "My boy! My luck has changed!"

Apparently it had. The man who had thought he could ride the horse
limped weakly to a blanket-roll, and sat himself down to gather up the
pieces of his breath and consciousness. He wanted no more. He felt it
was cheap at the price he had paid to escape with a hint of his life.

Van waited for nothing, not even the money that Charlie of the hay-yard
was holding. He mounted to the saddle that had been the seat of hell,
and in joy unspeakable Suvy walked away, in response to the pressure of
his knees.

CHAPTER XLII

THE FURNACE OF GOLD

All the following day, which was Thursday, two small companies were out
in the hills. One was Beth's, where she, Glen, and Pratt toiled slowly
over miles and miles of baking mountains and desert slopes and rocks,
tracing out the reservation boundary with a long slender ribbon of
steel.

The other group, equally, if less openly, active, comprised the sheriff
and three of his men. They were trailing out the boundary of one man's
endurance, against fatigue, starvation, and the hatred of his kind.

Barger had been at his work once more, slaying and robbing for his
needs. He had killed a Piute trailer, put upon his tracks; he had
robbed a stage, three private travelers, and a freight-team loaded with
provisions. He had lived on canned tomatoes and ginger snaps for a
week--and the empty tins sufficiently blazed his orbit.

He was known to be mounted, armed, and once more reduced to extremities
in the way of procuring food. A trap had been laid, a highway baited
with an apparently defenseless wagon, with two mere desert prospectors
and their outfit for a load--and this he was expected to attack.

The morning waned and the afternoon was speeding. Old Pratt, with Beth
and Glen, was eager to finish by sunset. The farther he walked the
more the surveyor apparently warmed to his work. Beth became footsore
by noon. But she made no complaint. She plodded doggedly ahead, the
ribbon-like "ch