blindly to the mare and when he looked back they were already pulling their
mounts down to a hand gallop. That would teach them to match Molly in a
sprint, roan or no roan!

He slapped her below the withers, where the long, hard muscles rippled back
and forth. She was full of running, her gallop as light as the toss of a
bough in the wind, and now as he pulled her back to a swinging canter her
head went high, with pricking ears. Suddenly his heart went out to her; she
would run like that till she died, he knew.

"Good girl," he whispered huskily.

The day was paling towards the end when he headed into the foothills of the
White Mountains. He drew up Molly for a breath on a level shoulder. Already
he was close to the snow line with ragged heads of white rearing above him.
Far below, a pale streak of moonlight was the Asper. Then, out of that
blacker night on the slopes beneath, he heard the clinking hoofs of the
posse; the quiet was so perfect, the air so clear, that he even caught the
chorus of straining saddle leather and then voices of men. All this time
the effects of the whisky had been wearing away by imperceptible degrees
and at that sound all his old self rushed back on Vic Gregg. Why, they were
his friends, his partners, these voices in the night, and that clear laughter
floated up from Harry Fisher who had been his bunkie at the Circle V
Bar ranch three years ago. He felt an insane impulse to lean over the edge
of the cliff and shout a greeting.



Chapter VI. The Rifle