Dan called and Black Bart yelped in answer.  Satan tossed up his head and neighed as he raced along.  The two replies were like human assurances that there was still a fighting chance.

The steady loss of blood was telling rapidly now.  He clutched the pommel, set his teeth, and felt oblivion settle slowly and surely upon him.  As his senses left him he noted the black outlines of the next high range of hills, a full ten miles away.

He only knew the pace of Satan never slackened.  There seemed no effort in it.  He was like one of those fabled horses, the offspring of the wind, and like the wind, tireless, eternal of motion.

A longer oblivion fell upon Dan.  As he roused from it he found himself slipping in the saddle.  He struggled desperately to grasp the saddlehorn and managed to draw himself up again; but the warning was sufficient to make him hunt about for some means of making himself more secure in the saddle.  It was a difficult task to do anything with only one hand, but he managed to tie his left arm to the bucking-strap.  If the end came, at least he was sure to die in the saddle.  Vaguely he was aware as he looked around that the black hills were no longer in the distance.  He was among them.

On went Satan.  His breath was coming more and more laboured.  It seemed to Dan’s dim consciousness that some of the spring was gone from that glorious stride which swept on and on with the slightest undulation, like a swallow skimming before the wind; but so long as strength remained he knew that Satan would never falter in his pace.  As the delirium swept once more shadow-like on his brain, he allowed himself to fall forward, and wound his fingers as closely as possible in the thick mane.  His left arm jerked horribly against the bonds.  Black night swallowed him once more.

Only his invincible heart kept Satan going throughout that last stretch.  His ears lay flat on his neck, lifting only when the master muttered and raved in his fever.  Foam flew back against his throat and breast.  His breath came shorter, harder, with a rasp; but the gibbering voice of his rider urged him on, faster, and faster.  They topped a small hill, and a little to the left and a mile away, rose a group of cottonwoods, and Dan, recovering consciousness, knew the house of Buck.  He also knew that his last moment of consciousness was come.  Surges of sleepy weakness swept over his brain.  He could never guide Satan to the house.

“Bart!” he called feebly.

The wolf whining, dropped back beside him.  Dan pointed his right arm straight ahead.  Black Bart leaped high into the air and his shrill yelp told that he had seen the cottonwoods and the house.

Dan summoned the last of his power and threw the reins over the head of Satan.

“Take us in, Bart,” he said, and twisting his fingers into Satan’s mane fell across the saddlehorn.

Satan, understanding the throwing of the reins as an order to halt, came to a sharp stop, and the body of the senseless rider sagged to one side.  Black Bart caught the reins.  They were bitter and salt with blood of the master.