As his last words came back to them he was out on the street and running.  He knew within himself that it was too late.  They would find that Sanchia or one of her crowd had already visited Harkness’s office.  Well, that was one thing; the other was to take possession.  His boots clattered loudly upon the echoing board sidewalk and men came out to look after him.

He came to his horse in front of the hotel, snatched the tie-rope loose and went up into the saddle without bothering about the spurs hanging over the horn.  His horse plunged under him and in another moment horse and rider were racing, even as Sanchia Murray’s white mare had carried her, out toward Big Run.

He came as close to killing a horse that day as he had ever come in his life.  His face grew sterner as he flung the barren miles behind him and higher and higher surged the bitterness in his heart.  If Longstreet had found gold, and he believed that he had, it would have meant so much to Helen.  He had seen how she did without little things; he had felt that she was just exactly the finest girl in all of the world; it had seemed to him only the right and logical thing that she should own a gold mine.  And now it was to go to Jim Courtot and Sanchia Murray.  Sanchia instead of Helen!  At the moment he felt that he could have choked the lying heart out of the woman’s soft white throat.  As for Jim Courtot, already he and Howard hated each other as perforce two men of their two types must come to do.  Here again was ample cause for fresh hatred; he drove his horse on furiously, anxious to come upon Courtot, thanking God in his heart that he could look to his enemy for scant words and a quick gun.  There come to men at times situations when the only solution is to be found in shooting a way out.  Now, more than ever before in his life, was Alan Howard ready for this direct method.

Arrived in Big Run he rode straight on until he came to Tony Moraga’s.  Here, if anywhere in the settlement, he could hope to find his man.  A glance showed him one horse only at the rack, a lean sorrel that he recognized.  It was Yellow Barbee’s favourite mount, and it struck him that if there were further hard riding to be done, here was the horse to satisfy any man.  He threw himself from the saddle, left his own horse balancing upon its trembling legs, and stepped into the saloon.

Moraga was dozing behind his bar.  Yellow Barbee sat slumped over a table, his lean, grimy fingers twisting an empty glass.  No one else was in the room.

‘Courtot been here?’ demanded Howard of Moraga.

Moraga shook his head.  Howard glanced toward Barbee.  The boy’s face was sullen, his eyes clouded.  He glowered at Moraga and, turning his morose eyes upon Howard, snapped out: 

’Moraga lies.  Jim was here a little while ago.  He’s just beat it with a lot of his rotten crowd, Monte Devine and Bettins and True.  They’re up to something crooked.’