Darting down the narrow game trail, Hugh Gaylord sped in the direction of the shots. In all the forest dramas that the pines had looked down upon—the lightning flight of the deer before the wolf pack, the elk speeding madly with the lynx at his flanks—they had never seen a more desperate ride, a wilder race. He had lashed the horse into the fastest pace it knew: not loping, not running easily, but a frantic run to burst open the heart and force the jets of blood through the walls of the veins. Hugh was riding for Alice’s life, and the least fraction of the last second might hold the issue. He had only one thought and one prayer: that he could arrive in time. He scarcely tried to guide the horse. He left it to the animal’s instincts to keep to the trail. It was only a little moonlit serpent between walls of brush or through the open tree-lanes; it had treacherous turns, and here and there great logs had fallen across it, yet the reins hung loose and he flailed at the animal’s side with the strap ends. He didn’t know when a low-hanging limb of a tree would crush his skull, when the horse would trip and hurl him to his death. These things simply did not matter. They scarcely entered his mind. All thoughts of self, even realization of self-identity was gone from him: he was simply the rescuer, speeding to give aid. He suddenly knew—in a blinding flash of light—that in this undertaking not even his own life mattered a hair. If she had been a stranger to him, even the lowliest herdsman, Hugh Gaylord would still have raced to give aid. The Old Colonel had not been mistaken in his judgment of Hugh’s basic metal, and he would have stood, bravely and strongly, this elemental test of manhood. But this was more. The forest was shadowed, the trail was dark, yet Hugh saw more clearly than ever before. Life and death were not the only issues now. All of infinity, it seemed to him, hung in the balance; and no inward doubts, no voice of reason could make it less. In one instant he realized that Alice was in her own being his life and death, his heaven and hell, his spirit and his world and his stars. She called him through the night, and as long as life dwelt in his body he would fight toward her. Her hands reached out to him, and he would grasp them boldly across the yawning chasm. Danger, death, travail and pain were but gifts to give, freely, with never a regret. The way was dark, but an inward light had come to him. He heard the second shot, then the third and the fourth. He sped on. The clamor of the pack seemed just at hand. Sharp and piercing above it the last shot reached him. And then there was a long delay, a grim silence that seemed to tear him to pieces with horror. Was the fight over? Did she already lie still? The pack, also, was ominously silent, snarling rather than baying. The pistol was empty,—and Hugh guessed the truth.