"They've got Weaver," he heard a voice say. And he started and looked around, and seeing no one near, knew it was his own voice that he heard. It was dry and light--as a man's voice might be who has run far and fast. He stood for a while, looking down at Weaver. His brain was reeling, as it had reeled over on the ledge of the pueblo a few minutes before, when he had discovered a certain thing. It was not a weakness; it was a surge of reviving rage, an accession of passion that made his head swim with its potency, made his muscles swell with a strength that he had not known for many hours. Never in his life had he felt more like crying. His emotions seared his soul as a white-hot iron sears the flesh; they burned into him, scorching his pity and his impulses of mercy, withering them, blighting them. He heard himself whining sibilantly, as he had heard boys whine when fighting, with eagerness and lust for blows. It was the insensate, raging fury of the fight-madness that had gripped him, and he suddenly yielded to it and raised his head, laughing harshly, with panting, labored breath. Barkwell rode up to him, speaking hoarsely: "We come pretty near wipin' 'em out, 'Firebrand!'" He looked up at his foreman, and the latter's face blanched. "God!" he said. He whispered to a cowboy who had joined him: "The boss is pretty near loco--looks like!" "They've killed Weaver," muttered Trevison. "He's here. They killed Clay, too--he's down on a rock near the slope." He laughed, and tightened his belt. The record book which he had carried in his waistband all along interfered with this work, and he drew it out, throwing it from him. "Clay was worth a thousand of them!" Barkwell got down and seized the book, watching Trevison closely. "Look here, Boss," he said, as Trevison ran to his horse and threw himself into the saddle; "you're bushed, mighty near--" If Trevison heard his first words he had paid no attention to them. He could not have heard the last words, for Nigger had lunged forward, running with great, long, catlike leaps in the direction of Manti. "Good God!" yelled Barkwell to some of the men who had ridden up; "the damn fool is goin' to town! They'll salivate him, sure as hell! Some of you stay here--two's enough! The rest of you come along with me!" They were after Trevison within a few seconds, but the black horse was far ahead, running without hitch or stumble, as straight toward Manti as his willing muscles and his loyal heart could take him. * * * * * Corrigan had seen the black bolt that had rushed toward him out of the spot where the blot had been. He cursed hoarsely and drove the spurs deep into the flanks of his horse, and the animal, squealing with pain and fury, leaped down the side of the arroyo, crossed the bottom in two or three bounds and stretched away toward Manti.