Another yowl from a score of throats.
From the start it was unequal, and the gain on the side of the pursuers. For the biting poison that had made the Indians bold to the point of open defiance was now stirring them into fleeter going. They kept up a constant jabbering. They broke into short, puffy whoops. And gradually, but surely, the rods decreased between quarry and pack.
The sweat dreening from their faces, The Squaw and Dallas strained forward. But now of the two, one could scarcely keep a walk. Her strength was ebbing to the final drop.
"Charley—Charley—I'm tired!"
The outcast stumbled back to help her.
A little while, and she whispered again. "Can't go—stop—can't——"
Every breath was sawing at her sore lungs. She tottered, pitched forward, and went down.
It was then that Charley pointed to the front, and as if to a vantage-place. Dallas looked, and saw, at the end of sheer walls, an oblong opening of greyish light. She hailed it dumbly. There was where the coulée narrowed until a man, standing in its bed with arms outstretched, could place the tips of his fingers against either rocky wall. There a last stand might be made. The Throat!
One helping the other, they dragged themselves on and into the opening.