The others came thundering up. "It's a lie!" they shouted.
"Come on!" cried Milton, dropping the rein on Mark's neck, and darting away on the trail of the false courier.
The young fellows caught the excitement, and every one who had a horse leaped into the saddle and clattered after, with whoop and halloo, as if they were chasing a wolf.
The rider ahead suddenly discovered that he was being followed, and he urged his horse to a more desperate pace along the lane which skirted the woods' edge for a mile, and then turned sharply and led across the river.
Along the lane is the chase led. There was something in the grim silence with which Milton and Bacon rode in the lead that startled the spy's guilty heart. He pushed his horse unmercifully, hoping to discourage his pursuers.
Milton's blood was up now, and bringing the flat of his hand down on the proud neck of his colt—the first blow he ever struck him, he shouted—
"Get out o' this, Mark!"
The magnificent animal threw out his chin, his ears laid flat back, he seemed to lower and lengthen, his eyes took on a wild glare. The air whizzed by Milton's ears. A wild exultation rose in his heart. All the stories of rides and desperate men he had ever read came back in a vague mass to make his heart thrill.
Mark's terrific pace steadily ate up the intervening distance, and Milton turned the corner and thundered down the decline at the very heels of the fugitive.
"Hey! Hold on there!" Milton shouted, as he drew alongside and passed the fellow. "Hold on there!"