The pursuer made a single stop on his way to the river and that was at a gun store, from which he emerged carrying a pair of saddle bags on his arm. In the holsters were two loaded pistols.
He smiled as he mounted, having already consummated vengeance in his heart. Once across the river and safe upon the Louisville pike, he loosened the reins. The horse, whose sympathetic heart had already been imbued with the spirit of his rider, shook his long black mane, plunged forward and pounded along the hard turnpike. His hoof-beats—sharp, sonorous, rhythmical—seemed to be crying for vengeance; for hoof-beats have a language, and always utter the thoughts of a rider.
Now that he was well on his way the outraged husband had time to reflect, and the past few months rose vividly before him. He saw his own folly and did not spare himself in his condemnation; but this folly did not for an instant modify the guilt of the two fugitives. Every moment his injuries seemed more colossal, more unpardonable, more unendurable. He had been wounded in his affections and also in his vanity, which was far more dreadful, and an agonizing thirst for vengeance overpowered him.
The great veins began to swell in his neck. He would have choked, had he not violently torn off his collar and cravat and flung them into the dust.
His thirst for blood outstripped his fleet horse, who seemed to him, in his impetuous haste, to be creeping like a snail. He drove his spurs deep into the sides of the frightened animal, which almost leaped through his girth. A less expert horseman would have been unseated; but an earthquake could not have thrown this Centaur out of his saddle.
The forests, hills and houses flowed past him like a river. Occasionally he halted an instant to inquire of some lonely traveler if he had seen a horse and buggy passing that way, but he was cunning enough to conceal his anxiety and to hide his joy as every answer made him more certain that he was on the trail of the fugitives.
The road was perfectly familiar. He had traversed it a hundred times, and not having to inquire the way he had only to remember and to reflect. An undercurrent of speculation had been flowing through his mind as to where he should overtake the fugitives.
"They will have arrived almost at the edge of the great forest and I will let them enter," he said to himself.
Having reached the foot of a long hill, he dismounted, led his horse to a little brook and permitted him to drink. When the noble animal had quenched his thirst, the quack patted his neck, picked him a little wisp of grass and talked to him as if he were a man.
"We will rest ourselves a little now, for we shall need all our strength and nerve. One more b-b-burst of speed and we shall overhaul them. Have you got your wind, Romeo? Come then, let us be off!"