With the dawn still gray he heard a horse behind and below him on the trail up the cliff face.  He stopped and sat waiting, twisted about in his saddle, his expression ugly and defiant, and yet touchingly helpless, the look of a boy in trouble and at bay.  The horseman came into sight on the trail below, riding hard, a middle-aged man in a dark sack suit and a straw hat, an oddly incongruous figure and manifestly weary.  He rode bent forward, and now and again he raised his eyes from the trail and searched the wall above with bloodshot, anxious eyes.

On the turn below Dick, Bassett saw him for the first time, and spoke to him in a quiet voice.

“Hello, old man,” he said.  “I began to think I was going to miss you after all.”

His scrutiny of Dick’s face had rather reassured him.  The delirium had passed, apparently.  Dishevelled although he was, covered with dust and with sweat from the horse, Livingstone’s eyes were steady enough.  As he rode up to him, however, he was not so certain.  He found himself surveyed with a sort of cool malignity that startled him.

“Miss me!” Livingstone sneered bitterly.  “With every damned hill covered by this time with your outfit!  I’ll tell you this.  If I’d had a gun you’d never have got me alive.”

Bassett was puzzled and slightly ruffled.

“My outfit!  I’ll tell you this, son, I’ve risked my neck half the night to get you out of this mess.”

“God Almighty couldn’t get me out of this mess,” Dick said somberly.

It was then that Bassett saw something not quite normal in his face, and he rode closer.

“See here, Livingstone,” he said, in a soothing tone, “nobody’s going to get you.  I’m here to keep them from getting you.  We’ve got a good start, but we’ll have to keep moving.”

Dick sat obstinately still, his horse turned across the trail, and his eyes still suspicious and unfriendly.

“I don’t know you,” he said doggedly.  “And I’ve done all the running away I’m going to do.  You go back and tell Wilkins I’m here and to come and get me.  The sooner the better.”  The sneer faded, and he turned on Bassett with a depth of tragedy in his eyes that frightened the reporter.  “My God,” he said, “I killed a man last night!  I can’t go through life with that on me.  I’m done, I tell you.”

“Last night!” Some faint comprehension began to dawn in Bassett’s mind, a suspicion of the truth.  But there was no time to verify it.  He turned and carefully inspected the trail to where it came into sight at the opposite rim of the valley.  When he was satisfied that the pursuit was still well behind them he spoke again.

“Pull yourself together, Livingstone,” he said, rather sharply.  “Think a bit.  You didn’t kill anybody last night.  Now listen,” he added impressively.  “You are Livingstone, Doctor Richard Livingstone.  You stick to that, and think about it.”