A GALLOP OF THREE.
We were off, we Three on our Gallop to save and to slay.
Pumps and Fulano took fire at once. They were ready to burst into their top speed, and go off in a frenzy.
“Steady, steady,” cried Brent. “Now we’ll keep this long easy lope for a while, and I’ll tell you my plan.
“They have gone to the southward,—those two men. They could not get away in any other direction. I have heard Murker say he knows all the country between here and the Arkansaw. Thank Heaven! so do I, foot by foot.”
I recalled the sound of galloping hoofs I had heard in the night to the southward.
“I heard them, then,” said I, “in my watch after Fulano’s lariat was cut. The wind lulled, and there came a sound of horses, and another sound, which I then thought a fevered fancy of my own, a far-away scream of a woman.”
Brent had been quite unimpassioned in his manner until now. He groaned, as I spoke of the scream.
“O Wade! O Richard!” he said, “why did you not know the voice? It was she. They have terrible hours the start.”
He was silent a moment, looking sternly forward. Then he began again, and as he spoke, his iron gray edged on with a looser rein.