What did follow brought the chase to a calamitous end. The flying wheels of the light car answered promptly to the pressure of the brake, and the car plunged sullenly through a cutting, promising to come to a full stop on the curve beyond. The hunted one sprang to his feet and kicked savagely at the brake lever. It was jammed, and he was too late. The pursuing locomotive dashed through the cutting and was fairly upon him before he could jump and save himself. Antrim saw the doomed one kicking at the jammed lever and heard his scream of terror and the crash of the collision in the same pulse beat. What came after seemed like the awakening from a hideous dream, though the realities asserted themselves once more when they were lifting him from the wreck of the shattered hand car. “There is life in him yet; handle him gently, boys,” he said. “If he dies before he can talk an innocent man will hang for it.” They made a rude bed for him with their coats in the empty coal pit on the engine, and so got the crushed body of him back to Voltamo and to a bunk in the freight shed at the station. Antrim could not neglect his duties, but the physician’s verdict cheered him a little. “He is a dead man,” so ran the verdict, “and that probably within twenty-four hours. But there is a chance that he will revive a little toward the last.” “A chance that he will be able to tell us what we have to know?” asked Antrim. “Yes. Have your lawyer here, and the witnesses. When the man begins to find himself, call me, and I’ll try to keep him alive till you get what you need--that is, if he will give it to you.” “He has got to give it to us,” returned Antrim desperately; and when he had made all the preparations suggested by the physician he telegraphed the facts to Forsyth, and settled down to work his way through the grimmest day of waiting that has ever been marked off in any calendar of suspense. The end came in the dusk of the evening when the shadows were beginning to fill the deeper clefts in the mighty cañon. Gasset opened his eyes, stirred feebly, and asked for liquor; and Antrim called the lawyer and the witnesses, and sent out in hot haste for the physician. As it fell out, there was time and to spare; time for a halting confession from the dying murderer, in which he told no more lies than he could help; time, needless time, after that for the slow and reluctant passing of a hopeless soul from a maimed and tortured body. Antrim drew breath of blessed relief when it was all over, but it was a full hour afterward before he could compose himself sufficiently to send a second telegram to Forsyth. “Gasset died at 7.12 this P. M. He was conscious at the last, and made full confession and deposition in legal form. Same to you by express on Number Two to-night. Hearty congratulations to Brant. Will be in Denver day after to-morrow. “ANTRIM.” CHAPTER XXXVII