Hopeless, but not to be submitted to without a struggle. He would neither sit apathetic nor frantic, nor turn the gun on himself. Hope had gone as a matter of reasoning; but something had taken its place which in power transcended hope--cold rage, and a savage, defiant hatred for that deadly, silent trap; a rage such as he seldom had felt before, which urged him to tear and rend the sands as though they were a sentient enemy. Hope, living in him, had been faint-hearted when he thought of how ghastly the thing was; how he, a man with all a man's strength of body and mind and will, mounted on the finest horse for hundreds of miles, armed with a weapon, the use of which no man knew better; how he could not do a thing to save his life. What is hope but a wish? But the dynamic rage which crept through him was a force of another kind--defiant, savage determination to cheat the workings of that mobile bed of horror, or go down to a death made glorious by the fight. He shook his fist at it. His thin lips drew back over set teeth in a snarl primitive in its timbre and in the savage nature behind it "D--n you! You may win; but I'll make that winnin' hard!" Gripping the pommel he climbed up onto the saddle and poised for the leap. Could he believe his ears? Glancing around, he saw a woman tearing down the valley toward him, the drumming roll of her horse's pounding hoofs growing ever louder. What a sound! What music ever was so sweet? What sight had ever been so beautiful as that trim figure mounted astride a horse which seemed to spurn the grass in its arrowy flight? Hatless her hair streaming behind her like a glorious battle flag of Hope, came Margaret, and her voice rang out like a trumpet. "_Wait!_" Hope returned again to bulwark Rage and give Determination a better footing and stronger lever. "Pepper Girl," choked Johnny, "I'm glad I waited. There's mebby many a mile we'll do together, better friends than ever. I'm tellin' you that if there's any way outside of h--l to get you out of this, yo're goin'. Hear me, little hoss? An' that thoroughbred girl has brought us th' way. Cheer up--we're goin' out, you an' me. But we'll have bad dreams--plumb bad dreams--for many a night to come." He suddenly raised a warning hand. "Look out!" he shouted. "Don't come too close!" "I know this grisly thing like a book," she replied. "What shall I do?" "Don't come too close!" "This is the edge; tell me what to do!" She looked at Lang's partly submerged body and shuddered.