He wheeled his horse in among the birches, and then sat still, with fingers that quivered a little on the carbine-stock, until a faint drumming rose from the prairie.
"He's coming!" said the trooper. "Hilton's hanging on to him."
Payne made no answer, and the sound that rang more loudly every moment through the grayness of the early daylight was not pleasant to hear. Man's vitality is near its lowest about that hour, and the troopers had ridden furiously the long night through, while one of them, who knew Lance Courthorne, surmised that there was grim work before him. Still, though he shivered as a little chilly wind shook the birch twigs, he set his lips, and once more remembered the comrade who had ridden far and kept many a lonely vigil with him.
Then a mounted man appeared in the space between the trees. His horse was jaded, and he rode loosely, swaying once or twice in his saddle, but he came straight on, and there was a jingle and rattle as the troopers swung out into the trail. The man saw them, for he glanced over his shoulder, as if at the rider who appeared behind, and then sent the spurs in again.
"Pull him up," cried Corporal Payne, and his voice was a little strained. "Stop right where you are before we fire on you!"
The man must have seen the carbines, for he raised himself a trifle, and Payne saw his face under the flapping hat. It was drawn and gray, but there was no sign of yielding or consternation in the half-closed eyes. Then he lurched in his saddle as from exhaustion or weariness, and straightened himself again with both hands on the bridle. Payne saw his heels move and the spurs drip red, and slid his left hand further along the carbine stock. The trail was steep and narrow. A horseman could scarcely turn in it, and the stranger was coming on at a gallop.
"He will have it," said the trooper hoarsely. "If he rides one of us down he may get away."
"We have got to stop him," said Corporal Payne.
Once more the swaying man straightened himself, flung his head back, and with a little breathless laugh drove his horse furiously at Payne. He was very close now, and his face showed livid under the smearing dust, but his lips were drawn up in a little bitter smile as he rode straight upon the leveled carbines. Payne, at least, understood it, and the absence of flung-up hand or cry. Courthorne's inborn instincts were strong to the end.
There was a hoarse shout from the trooper, and no answer, and a carbine flashed. Then Courthorne loosed the bridle, reeled sideways from the saddle, rolled half round with one foot in the stirrup and his head upon the ground, and was left behind, while the riderless horse and pursuer swept past the two men who, avoiding them by a hairsbreadth, sat motionless a moment in the thin drifting smoke.