If only something would arise to reveal Smith's character to her in its true light! But this was too much to hope. In his depression, it seemed to Ralston that the sun would never shine for him again, that failure was written on him like an I. D. brand, that sorrow everlasting would eat and sleep with him. In this mood, after a brief exchange of breakfast civilities, far worse than none, he walked slowly to the corral to saddle, cursing Smith for the braggart he knew he was and for the scoundrel he believed him to be. Smith, it seemed, was riding that morning also, for when Ralston led his brown mare saddled and bridled from the stable, Smith was tightening the cinch on his long-legged gray--the horse he had taken from the Englishman. The Schoolmarm, in her riding clothes, ran down the trail, calling impartially: "Will one of you please get my horse for me? He broke loose last night and is over there in the pasture." For reply, both Ralston and Smith swung into their saddles. "I aims to get that horse. There's no call for you to go, feller." Above all else, it was odious to Ralston to be addressed by Smith "feller." "If you happen to get to him first," he answered curtly. "And I'd like to suggest that my name is Ralston." By way of answer, Smith dug the spurs cruelly into the thin-skinned blooded gray. Ralston loosened the reins on his brown mare, and it was a run from the jump. Each realized that the inevitable clash had come, that no pretense of friendliness would longer be possible between them, that from now on they would be avowed enemies. As for Ralston, he was glad that the crisis had arrived; glad of anything which would divert him for ever so short a time from his own bitter thoughts; glad of the test which he could meet in the open, like a man. The corral gate was open, and this led into a lane something like three-quarters of a mile in length, at the end of which was another gate, opening into the pasture where the runaway pony had crawled through the loose wire fence. The brown mare had responded to Ralston's signal like the loyal, honest little brute she was. The gravel flew behind them, and the rat-a-tat-tat of the horses' hoofs on the hard road was like the roll of a drum. They were running neck and neck, but Ralston had little fear of the result, unless the gray had phenomenal speed. Ralston knew that whoever reached the gate first must open it. If he could get far enough in the lead, he could afford to do so; if not, he meant to "pull" his horse and leave it to Smith. The real race would be from the gate to the pony.