Severely bruised by the shock, but fortunately without broken bones, I
recall half-wheeling even as I fell, wondering if my prisoner would
grasp this opportunity for escape. Quite probably the thought never
occurred to her; perhaps her woman's heart, in the stress of such
accident, held her motionless. But Craig, startled at the sudden crash
behind him, spurred back to learn the full extent of my disaster. By
this time I had regained my feet.

"I'm all right, I think, Sergeant," I said hastily, "but the sorrel has
broken her neck."

He began to swear at our ill luck, but I stopped him with a gesture he
knew better than to ignore.

"Enough of that," I commanded sternly. "Bad fortune is seldom bettered
by hard words. First of all, help me to drag this dead body out of
sight."

On one side of us the bank fell away with such precipitancy that when
we once succeeded in dragging our load to the edge, we experienced no
difficulty in sending it crashing downward. The body plunged through
the thick underbrush at the bottom of the gorge, where I knew it would
be completely hidden, even in the glare of daylight, from the prying
eyes of any troopers riding hard upon our track. With a branch, hastily
wrenched from a near-by tree, I carefully raked over the track, so
that, as far as I could determine in the dim light, all outward trace
of my accident had been fairly obliterated.

As we rapidly worked on this disagreeable task, I thought and planned: