The desperado's eyes were fixed and staring.
Ahead of him yawned the black and awful abyss.
Driving in the rowels of his spurs until the pinto snorted with pain, Jesse fairly threw the hardy little Indian pony at the rocky canyon.
"My God, he is going over!" cried the Lieutenant, aghast at the awful leap the great bandit was about to take.
"He don't see it! He don't see it!
"Halt! The canyon!" roared the young officer in the stress of his excitement. For the moment he had forgotten that the man he was warning was he for whose death half a continent was clamoring.
"He knows it, you fool!" snarled the Captain. "Don't you see he's going to jump it?"
"But its certain death."
"So is this," gritted the commander of the troop. "It's death either way he takes it, back or front.