"One of them gone for the river," another shout rang out, and
Courthorne was crashing through the undergrowth straight down the
declivity, while thin snow whirled about him, and now and then he
caught the faint glimmer flung back by the ice beneath.
Swaying boughs lashed him, his fur cap was whipped away, and he felt
that his face was bleeding, but there was another crackle close behind
him, for Trooper Payne was riding as daringly, and he carried a
carbine. Had he desired it Courthorne could not turn. The bronco he
bestrode was madly excited and less than half-broken, and it is
probable no man could have pulled him up just then. It may also have
been borne in upon Courthorne, that he owed a little to those he had
left behind him in the old country, and he had not lost his pride.
There was, it seemed, no escape, but he had at least a choice of
endings, and with a little breathless laugh he rode straight for the
river.
It was with difficulty Trooper Payne pulled his horse up on the steep
bank a minute later. A white haze was now sliding down the hollow
between the two dark walls of trees, and something seemed to move in
the midst of it while the ice rang about it. Then as the trooper
pitched up his carbine there was a crash that was followed by a
horrible floundering and silence again. Payne sat still shivering a
little in his saddle until the snow that whirled about him blotted out
all the birches, and a roaring blast came down.
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