“It’s Prather, and riding P.D.!” Galway announced.

“Where is Jack Wingfield?” came the merciless question as in one voice from all.

“You are his friends!  You have come to rescue him!” Prather cried.

He seemed overcome by his relief.  At all events, the wildness of his exclamation in face of the force barring the trail was without affectation.

“There is time?  There is hope?”

“Yes! yes!” gasped Prather, as the men began to surround him.

“Why are you here?  Why on his horse?”

“Leddy turned on me, too!  I was fighting at Wingfield’s side!  We got two of them before dark!  Then I was wounded and couldn’t see to shoot.  And I came for help.  And you will be in time!  He’s in a good position!”

“I think you are lying!” said Galway.

“He couldn’t help it!” said Bob Worther.

“How—­how would I have his horse if he weren’t willing?” protested Prather, frantically.

“By stealing it, in keeping with your character!”

“Yes!  On general principles we ought to—­”

“I have a piece of rope!” called a voice from the rear.

“There isn’t any tree.  But we can drop him over the wall of a chasm!”

Spectral figures with set faces appallingly grim in the thin moonlight pressed close to Prather.

“My God!  No!” he pleaded, throatily.  “We fought together, I tell you!  We drew lots to see which one should take the risk of riding through danger to save the other!”

“Lying again!”

“Here’s the rope!  All we’ve got to do is to slip a noose over his head!”

“It’s a clean piece of rope, isn’t it?” said the Doge, in his mellow voice.  “I don’t think it’s worth while soiling a clean piece of rope.  Come!  Taking his life is no way to save Jack’s.  Come, we are losing time!”

“Right, Doge!” said the man with the rope.  “But it is some satisfaction to give him a scare.”

“And take care of P.D.!” called another.

“Yes, if you founder Jack’s pony you’ll hear from us a-plenty!”

This was their adieu to John Prather, who was left to pursue his way in safety to his kingdom, while they rode on, following a hard path at the base of the range.  Those with the best horses took the lead, while the heavier men, including the Doge, whose weight was telling on their mounts, fell to the rear.  Mary was at the head, between Dr. Patterson and Jim Galway.

The stars flickered out; the moon grew pale, and for a while the horsemen rode into a wall of blackness, conscious of progress only by the sound of hoof-beats which they were relentlessly urging forward.  Then dawn flashed up over the chaos of rocks, pursuing night with the sweep of its broadening, translucent wings across the valley to the other range.  The tops of the cotton-woods rose out of the sparkling sea, floating free of any visible support of trunks, and the rescuers saw that they were near the end of their journey.