Both overlooked, however, an important factor in Central Park’s equipment—the net-work of wires spread over its length and breadth for facility of the authorities in imminent cases more or less like that of the moment. Only when a man and woman riding ahead of them were stopped and questioned by the police guard at the gate did Pape suspect that an alarm had been telephoned ahead of them. His plan was abruptly altered. Turning the horses, as if to continue an objectless canter, they started back over the path gained with such difficulty, trotting until beyond official view, thereafter breaking into the gallop of a pair of “renters” anxious to get the most possible out of their five-dollar hour in the saddle. Cañon after cañon gaped in the apartment-house mountain range on their left, marking streets passed. Their hope grew that, unmolested, they could pass out Pioneers Gate at the northwest corner of the park. But that hope, too, was outsped. Hoof-hammering behind caused both to glance over-shoulder at a bend. Three of the city’s mounted came pounding after them. Pape looked about to make sure of their location. The bridle path spilled into a pool of shadows at the bottom of a gorge; granite walls rolled back from trail-side. Recognition of the region which he had been exploring with Polkadot on his first clash with law and order aided in what was of necessity a lightning-changed decision. “Can’t make Pioneers Gate.” He signaled Jane to draw rein. “We’ll take to—bush—turn the cayuses loose—hide-out until they’ve given us—up.” He swung from saddle with the last panted period, expecting the girl to follow his example. When, on her delay, he hurried to her assistance, he saw that she was leaning upon the nose of her saddle, her lips pale as her cheeks. Bodily he lifted her to the ground and found her a temporary rest against a path-side stump. After turning the horses about, he looped their reins and, with a back-to-stable slap upon Polkadot’s splotched rump, started them down-park. White-circle death sentences painted upon withering elms, poplars and birches pointed the course over which he half-carried the “sweet pardner” exhausted by excitement too long sustained. When they came upon a brush-fringed depression, which at home he would have called an elk bed, he bade her take to cover; himself crawled back to spy out the movements of the pursuit. At the top of the last rise in the bridlepath, the police riders met the empty saddlers. They sounded greatly disturbed. From such scraps of loud-pitched conversation as carried, Pape pieced together their assumption that the fugitives had abandoned their mounts for a short-cut to the west wall. He saw two of the trio dismount and begin combing the brush in that direction, while the third remained on guard over the five horses.