The trail was steep and narrow. A
horseman could scarcely turn in it, and the stranger was coming on at a
gallop.
"He will have it," said the trooper hoarsely. "If he rides one of us
down he may get away."
"We have got to stop him," said Corporal Payne.
Once more the swaying man straightened himself, flung his head back,
and with a little breathless laugh drove his horse furiously at Payne.
He was very close now, and his face showed livid under the smearing
dust, but his lips were drawn up in a little bitter smile as he rode
straight upon the leveled carbines. Payne, at least, understood it,
and the absence of flung-up hand or cry. Courthorne's inborn instincts
were strong to the end.
There was a hoarse shout from the trooper, and no answer, and a carbine
flashed. Then Courthorne loosed the bridle, reeled sideways from the
saddle, rolled half round with one foot in the stirrup and his head
upon the ground, and was left behind, while the riderless horse and
pursuer swept past the two men who, avoiding them by a hairsbreadth,
sat motionless a moment in the thin drifting smoke.
Then Corporal Payne swung himself down, and, while the trooper
followed, stooped over the man who lay, a limp huddled object, in the
trail. He blinked up at them out of eyes that were almost closed.
"I think you have done for me," he said.
Payne glanced at his comrade. "Push on to the settlement," he said.
"They've a doctor there. Bring him and Harland the magistrate out.
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