Small, strong hands gripped his wrists and turned him away from the house.

“You fool!” cried Sally.  “Ride for it!  You’ve raised your hell at last—­I knew you would!”

Red light flared in all the windows of the dining-room; shouts and groans and cursing poured out of them.  Bard turned and followed her out toward the stable on the run, and he heard her moaning as she ran:  “I knew!  I knew!”

She mounted her horse, which was tethered near the barn.  He chose at random the first horse he reached, a grey, threw on his back the saddle which hung from the peg behind, mounted, and they were off through the night.  No thought, no direction; but only in blind speed there seemed to be the hope of a salvation.

A mile, two miles dropped behind them, and then in an open stretch, for he had outridden her somewhat, Anthony reined back, caught the bridle of her horse, and pulled it down to a sharp trot.

“Why have you come?”

Their faces were so close that even through the night he could see the grim set of her lips.

“Ain’t you raised your hell—­the hell you was hungry to raise?  Don’t you need help?”

“What I’ve done is my own doing.  I’ll take the burden of it.”

“You’ll take a halter for it, that’s what you’ll take.  The whole range’ll rise for this.  You’re marked already.  Everywhere you’ve gone you’ve made an enemy.  They’ll be out to get you—­Nash—­Boardman—­the whole gang.”

“Let ’em come.  I’d do this all over again.”

“Born gunman, eh?  Bard, you ain’t got a week to live.”

It was fierceness; it was a reproach rather than sorrow.

“Then let me go my own way.  Why do you follow, Sally?”

“D’you know these mountains?”

“No, but——­”

“Then they’d run you down in twelve hours.  Where’ll you head for?”

He said, as the first thought entered his mind:  “I’ll go for the old house that Drew has on the other side of the range.”

“That ain’t bad.  Know the short cut?”

“What cut?”

“You can make it in five hours over one trail.  But of course you don’t know.  Nobody but old Dan and me ever knowed it.  Let go my bridle and ride like hell.”

She jerked the reins away from him and galloped off at full speed.  He followed.

“Sally!” he called.

But she kept straight ahead, and he followed, shouting, imploring her to go back.  Finally he settled to the chase, resolved on overtaking her.  It was no easy task, for she rode like a centaur, and she knew the way.

CHAPTER XXXI

NASH STARTS THE FINISH

Through the windows and the door the cowpunchers fled from the red spurt of the flames, each man for himself, except Shorty Kilrain, who stooped, gathered the lanky frame of Calamity Ben into his arms, and staggered out with his burden.  The great form of William Drew loomed through the night.