about their course. Now, in obedience to shouted orders from Hervey, the
cowpunchers split into two groups and slipped away on either side to
head the truants; Marianne herself, spurring as hard as she could after
Hervey, heard the foreman groaning: "By God, d'you ever _see_ a hoss
stand up under gunfire like that?"

For as they galloped, the men were pumping in shot after shot wildly,
and Alcatraz did not stir! The firing merely served to rouse the mares
from trot to gallop, and from gallop to run. For the first time Marianne
mourned their speed. They glided away as though the horses of the
cowpunchers were running fetlock deep in mud; they shot up the slope
towards the distant stallion like six bright arrows.

Then came Hervey's last, despairing effort: "Pull up! Shorty! Slim! Pull
up and try to drop that devil!"

They obeyed; Marianne, racing blindly ahead, heard a clanguor of shots
behind her and riveted her eyes on the chestnut, waiting for him to
fall. But he did not fall. He seemed to challenge the bullets with his
lordly head and in another moment he was wheeling with the mares about
him. Even in her anguish, Marianne noted with a thrill of wonder that
though the Coles horses were racing at the top of their speed, the
stallion overtook them instantly and shot into the lead. For that
matter, handicapped with a wretched ride, staggering weak from
underfeeding, he had been good enough to beat them in Glosterville, and
now he was transformed by rich pasture and glorious freedom.

The whole group disappeared, and when she reached the crest in turn, she
saw them streaking far off, hopelessly beyond pursuit, and in the rear
labored a grey mare, sadly outrun. Then, as she drew rein, with the mare