So, as he hung there, everything came back to him. He remembered that he was on the trail to Welland's to arrest the rancher. Then he saw that the saddle was twisted to one side and the oak cantle broken. The horse, too, was cut and grimy about the knees and blood had dried in its nostrils. Next he realized that his tunic had been ripped up the back and was hanging in shreds. His hat was gone, his face covered with dirt, the clammy streams on his cheeks were blood, flowing from wounds in his forehead. Then he recollected the fall. The horse had apparently put its forefoot in a hole and turned a somersault. In the fall, pinned beneath the horse, he had been torn along the ground. Gradually he realized that had he not been exceptionally strong, he would have been killed by the fall, in which he had been dragged twenty feet.
As things were he was in no condition to go on. Even the iron code of the Mounted Police had no quarrel with a man who yielded when in such a state as Hector found himself. But his first thought was for the business in hand. The moon was going down. His watch had stopped at three o'clock. Then probably he had lain there hours afterwards. In desperate haste, he set about making up for lost time.
The whole secret of his reputation was revealed in that crisis.
He was sick and sore and his brain was whirling like a top. Yet somehow he twisted the saddle back into its rightful position, thanking God that his horse had remained faithfully beside him throughout, thus enabling him to complete his journey on horseback instead of on foot. Then he got somehow into the saddle, somehow started the horse and so, the reins twisted round his hands, while his fingers clung to the mane and he held on from hip to heel, urged gradually into a steady gallop.
"Am I in time? Am I in time?"
Drumming in his head with the beat of hoofs, that was the only thought he could retain.
The rest of the ride was sheer torture, without dimensions of time or distance. The road staggered under him, the horse rocked, the moon, now almost out, did idiotic things. Every shooting pain, every bump, went through him with terrible violence, his desire to end this agony and get to grips with Welland became a consuming fire.
"Am I in time? Am I in time?"
More dead than alive, he pounded into Welland's yard at last. Dawn was gilding the mountains. The shack showed only one feeble light. In a daze, biting back the cry of torment beating at his lips, he slid to the ground.
Now!