Page:The Cross Pull.pdf/74

 the man; it seemed that he had shaken off his hunter at last. He was deathly tired and slowed his pace. A few miles farther on he sprawled down in the snow on a little swell of ground. It seemed but a few short minutes until another horse loomed up on his back track.

Kinney had veered off to the ranch and changed mounts, throwing his saddle on the best horse in the corral. This time it was a rangy pinto that was running like a greyhound on his trail. So the desperate race kept up. Another score of miles and Flash had one more brief respite before a tough, smooth-running buckskin was after him,

His powerful muscles seemed to have lost their spring. His body was a leaden weight, almost too heavy for his legs. Only the one ever present knowledge that death lurked close behind forced him to keep ahead. He ran desperately, the mechanical driving of his muscles sending him on and on. From the first roll of the Wind River hills he looked back. A blocky, mountain-climbing bay loped away from the ranch house a mile below and buckled sturdily to his ascent of the hills.

With heaving sides, Flash started across the low divide for home. His breath sounded in leaky