Returning fear put strength into her quivering body. She sat erect once more, and again plied the ribboned whip. The horses, with sides smoking and flanks heaving, galloped on. They had made a terrible run, as their dripping bodies and straining red nostrils showed, but they were still game, and they responded to this new call as nobly as to the first. The section of the herd that had overwhelmed and trampled under foot the cattle in its way, came straight on, now and then tossing an unfortunate into the cañon as a splinter is flung out from a revolving and broken wheel. But the speedier horses drew away again. While hope was thus returning to Sibyl her horse went down, having thrust a foot into a grass-grown badger hole, and she was torn from the saddle and hurled violently through the air. She struck heavily and lay stunned. Clayton was off his horse and at her side in an instant, but had caution enough left to cling to his bridle rein. Sibyl lay groaning; but when he put his strong sound arm about her, she rose to her feet. Blood showed on her lips. “It’s nothing,” she said, as he wiped it away with his handkerchief. “I—I think I have only cut my lip.” The thunder of the approaching hoofs frightened her. “Can you help me into the saddle?” She clung to him weakly. “Yes,” he answered, supporting her. But when they turned to her horse he saw that in its fall it had broken its leg. It stood helplessly by the badger hole, from which it had scrambled, holding up that dangling leg. “You must take my horse!” he said. “And leave you here?” “I—I can outrun them, maybe; if I had a revolver I might stop the foremost and get ground to stand on.” She put her hand to her bosom and drew out a small revolver. “It may be foolish for a woman to carry such a weapon, but it will be useful now.” It was but a little thing, a woman’s toy, yet he took it eagerly. “I can turn them aside with this; you must take my horse at once.” He lifted her in his arms and placed her in his saddle. She did not stop for conventionalities, but set a foot in each stirrup. “You can make it yet!” he panted. “Go; don’t think of me; I will stop them here!” He knew he could neither stop them nor turn them aside. She did not want to leave him, but fear tore at her heart; the herd was on them again, though the halt had been so brief. “Go!” he yelled, and struck the horse with the shining revolver. Its quick leap almost threw her, but she clutched the horn of the saddle and raced on. Clayton turned to face the mad stampede. That line of tossing heads and clicking horns was not a hundred yards away. He looked at the little revolver and smiled. The strange light which had so startled Justin was again in his eyes. “I will not leave you to be trodden to death by them, old fellow,” he said to the horse; “you deserve a better fate than that.”