than he had realized by the bonds of his captivity, soon began to drag and stretch.  When halfway across, suspended above a ravening torrent; confronted, tired, by an effort he had needed all his fresh energies to put forth, Bob would have given a good deal to have been able to clamber aboard the bridge, risk or no risk.  It was, however, a clear case of needs must.  He finished the span on sheer nerve and will power; and fell thankfully on the rocks below the farther abutment.  For a half minute he lay there, stretching slowly his muscles and straightening his hands, which had become cramped like claws.  Then he crept, always in the shadow, to the level of the meadow.

Bob was learning to be a mountaineer.  Therefore, on the way down, he had subconsciously noted that from the head of the meadow a steep dry wash climbed straight up to intersect the road.  The recollection came to the surface of his mind now.  If he could make his way up this wash, he would gain three advantages:  he would materially shorten his journey by cutting off a mile or so of the road-grade’s twists and doublings; he would avoid the necessity of showing himself so near the Cove in the bright moonlight; and he would leave no tracks where the road touched the valley.  Accordingly he turned sharp to the left and began to pick his way upstream, keeping in close to the river and treading as much as possible on the water-worn rocks.  The willows and elders protected him somewhat.  In this manner he proceeded until he had come to the smooth rock aprons near the gorge from which the river flowed.  Here, in accordance with his intention of keeping close in the shadow of the mountain, he was to turn to the right until he should have arrived at the steep “chimney” of the wash.  He was about to leave the shelter of the last willows when he looked back.  As his eyes turned, a flash of moonlight struck them full, like the heliographing of a mirror.  He fixed his gaze on the bushes from which the flicker had come.  In a moment it was repeated.  Then, stooping low, a human figure hurried across a tiny opening, and once again the moonlight reflected from the worn and shining revolver in its hand.

XXVIII

In some manner Saleratus Bill had discovered the young man’s escape, and had already eliminated the other possibilities of his direction of flight.  Bob shuddered at this evidence of the rapidity with which the expert trailer had arrived at the correct conclusion.  He could not now skirt the mountain, as he had intended, for that would at once expose him in full view; he could not return by the way he had come, for that would bring him face to face with his enemy.  It would avail him little to surrender, for the gun-man would undoubtedly make good his threats; fidelity to such pledges is one of the few things sacred to the race.  With some vague and desperate idea of defence, Bob picked up a heavy branch of driftwood.  Then, as the man drew nearer, Bob scrambled hastily over the smooth apron to the tiny beach that the eddies had washed out below the precipice.