heaving and swaying from exhaustion beneath her, she remembered the
words of Lew Hervey: "It'll take ten years to get the chestnut!"
Marianne dropped her face in her hands and burst into tears.

It was only a momentary surrender. When she turned back to join the
downheaded men on the home-trail--for it was worse than useless to
follow Alcatraz on such jaded horses--Marianne had rallied to continue
the fight. Ten years to capture Alcatraz and the mares he led? She swept
the forms of the cowpunchers with one of those all-embracing glances of
which few great men and all excited women are capable. Yes, old age
would capture Alcatraz before such men as these. For this trail there
was needed a spirit as much superior to other men in tireless endurance
and in speed as Alcatraz was superior to other horses. There was needed
a man who stood among his fellows as Alcatraz had stood on the
hillcrest, defiant, lordly, and free. And as the thought drove home in
her, Marianne uttered a little cry of triumph. All in a breath she had
it. Red Perris was the man!

But would he come? Yes, for the sake of such a battle as this he would
journey to the end of the world and give his services for nothing.



CHAPTER XI

THE FAILURE

Before noon Shorty, that lightweight and tireless rider, unwearied, to
all appearance, by his efforts of that night, had started towards
Glosterville with her letter to Perris, but it was not until the next