Her ceaseless cry was goading the brave little beast like a spur.  He still leapt in response to it; but his every sinew was already strained to breaking, and he was nearing the end of his endurance.  The night had now become so dark that neither the pony nor the girl could see whither they were speeding.  And then suddenly the Hunter’s Moon broke the frail bars of its cloud prison, and was again free to cast its full splendor over the blackness.  Under this sudden burst of light, Anvil Rock leapt out of the shadows—­vague, black, huge, terrible—­and she uttered a cry startled and relieved at seeing it so near by, when she had thought it much farther off.  But as she looked again to make sure that it was real, and not some delusion of the mist, the first pang of fear struck back her leaping heart.  She drew up the panting, staggering pony with a convulsive clutch on the reins—­and waited, trembling and scarcely daring to breathe.  Some large dark form moved among the shadows around the base of Anvil Rock.

Another swirl of the shrieking wind sent the fugitive clouds flying again across the white face of the moon.  But only for an instant, and once more the darkness fled before the light of the crystal lamp.  Yet its bright beams could not pierce the thick gloom which hung heaviest at the foot of the dark mass.  Something still stood there, large, shadowy, and motionless.  Ruth’s trembling hand unconsciously went up and threw back the wildly blown hair which obscured her vision.  As the white moonlight thus fell full on her face, the dark shape instantly sprang out of the gloom, and she recognized Paul Colbert almost as soon as he saw her.

Neither uttered a cry of surprise or even of relief, for neither felt any strangeness in this most strange meeting.  When two hearts and two souls and two spirits have rushed together at the first meeting of the eyes,—­as these two had,—­no separation of mere flesh and blood can ever again really keep them apart.  These two were now only facing outwardly the images which they constantly bore within their breasts.  He had been thinking more of her through that wild ride than of the friend whose life he was perilling his own to save.  She had felt his presence at her side with every step of the pony’s flying feet; it was merely his body which she was striving to find and shield from harm.  So that when they thus suddenly came face to face in the moonlight there was no need for a cry or a word.  He sprang from his horse and leapt to the pony’s side; and she—­as silently and as naturally—­held out her arms to meet his embrace.

But they started apart before touching one another.  The distant sound of horses’ beating hoofs came with a gust of wind.  It was borne from the direction of Duff’s Fort, and out from among the dark trees there now rushed into the misty moonlight a score or more of dim shapes, vague and terrible as phantom horsemen.  Nearer and nearer these came rushing through the wavering mists, with scarcely a sound after