Their path lay towards it, for Pango Dooni hid in the hills, where the
sun hung a roof of gold above his stronghold.

"Forty to one!" said Tang-a-Dahit suddenly. "Now indeed we ride for our
lives!"

Looking down the track of the hillsman's glance Cumner's Son saw a bunch
of horsemen galloping up the slope. Boonda Broke's men!

The sorrel and the mare were fagged, the horses of their foes were fresh;
and forty to one were odds that no man would care to take. It might be
that some of Pango Dooni's men lay between them and the Bar of Balmud,
but the chance was faint.

"By the hand of Heaven," said the hillsman, "if we reach to the Bar of
Balmud, these dogs shall eat their own heads for dinner!"

They set their horses in the way, and gave the sorrel and mare the bit
and spur. The beasts leaned again to their work as though they had just
come from a feeding-stall and knew their riders' needs. The men rode
light and free, and talked low to their horses as friend talks to friend.
Five miles or more they went so, and then the mare stumbled. She got to
her feet again, but her head dropped low, her nostrils gaped red and
swollen, and the sorrel hung back with her, for a beast, like a man, will
travel farther two by two than one by one. At another point where they
had a long view behind they looked back. Their pursuers were gaining.
Tang-a-Dahit spurred his horse on.

"There is one chance," said he, "and only one. See where the point juts
out beyond the great medlar tree. If, by the mercy of God, we can but