But underlying all his surface thinking was still the need of flight, and he was continually confusing it with the earlier one. One moment he was looking about for the snow of that earlier escape, and the next he would remember, and the sense of panic would leave him. After all he meant to surrender eventually. It did not matter if they caught him. But, like the sense of flight, there was something else in his mind, something that he fought down and would not face. When it came up he thrust it back fiercely. That something was the figure of Beverly Carlysle, stooping over her husband's body. He would have died to save her pain, and yet last night--no, it wasn't last night. It was years and years ago, and all this time she had hated him. It was unbearable that she had gone on hating him, all this time. He was very thirsty, and water did not satisfy him. He wanted a real drink. He wanted alcohol. Suddenly he wanted all the liquor in the world. The craving came on at dawn, and after that he kicked his weary horse on recklessly, so that it rocked and stumbled down the trail. He had only one thought after the frenzy seized him, and that was to get to civilization and whisky. It was as though he saw in drunkenness his only escape from the unbearable. In all probability he would have killed both his horse and himself in the grip of that sudden madness, but deliverance came in the shape of a casual rider, a stranger who for a moment took up the shuttle, wove his bit of the pattern and passed on, to use his blow-pipe, his spirit lamp and his chemicals in some prospector's paradise among the mountains. When Dick heard somewhere ahead the creaking of saddle leather and the rattle of harness he drew aside on the trail and waited. He had lost all caution in the grip of his craving, and all fear. A line of loaded burros rounded a point ahead and came toward him, picking their way delicately with small deliberate feet and walking on the outer edge of the trail, after the way of pack animals the world over. Behind them was a horseman, rifle in the scabbard on his saddle and spurs jingling. Dick watched him with thirsty, feverish eyes as he drew near. He could hardly wait to put his question. “Happen to have a drink about you, partner?” he called. The man stopped his horse and grinned. “Pretty early in the morning for a drink, isn't it?” he inquired. Then he saw Dick's eyes, and reached reluctantly into his saddle bag. “I've got a quart here,” he said. “I've traveled forty miles and spent nine dollars to get it, but I guess you need some.” “You wouldn't care to sell it, I suppose?” “The bottle? Not on your life.” He untied a tin cup from his saddle and carefully poured a fair amount into it, steadying the horse the while. “Here,” he said, and passed it over. “But you'd better cut it out after this. It's bad medicine. You've got two good drinks there. Be careful.”