A few hours earlier this man had been the football of circumstances, tossed hither and yon as the buffetings of chance might impel him. But the pregnant hours have wrought a curious change in him, for better or worse, and before the breath-cutting plunge is checked he is free of the struggling horse and is kicking it to its feet to mount and ride again, charging the steep uprising with plying lash and digging heels and shouts of encouragement. Ten seconds later the trail is regained and the summit of the pass cuts the sky-line above him. Ten other flying leaps and a resolute man may hold an army at bay. But in the midst of them comes a clatter of hoofs on the rocky headland across the gulch, and a nerve-melting instant wherein the hoof-beats cease and the bleak heights give back a muffled echo in the rarefied air. The hunted one bends to the saddle-horn at the crack of the rifle, and the bullet sings high. A second is better aimed, and at the shrill hiss of it the snorting horse flattens its ears and lunges at the ascent with flagging powers fear-revived. A scrambling bound or two and the final height is gained, but in the pivoting instant between danger and safety a third bullet scores the horse's back and embeds itself in the cantle of the saddle with a benumbing shock to the rider. But by this the fugitive is fair Berserk-mad, and those who would stay him must shoot to kill. Once out of range beyond the crest of the pass, he drags the trembling horse to its haunches and whips down from the saddle, the wine of battle singing in his veins and red wrath answering for physical fitness. A hasty glance to make sure that the broncho's wound is not disabling, and he is back at the summit of the pass, sheltering himself behind a rock and sending shot after shot across the ravine at his assailants. The fusillade is harmless; wounds, mad gallops, and red wrath being easily subversive of accuracy in target practice; but it has the effect of sending the enemy to the rear in discreet haste, with the dropping shots beating quick time for the double quartette of trampling hoofs as the twain gallop out of range behind the bald headland. For a resolute half-hour, while the undertow of the ebbing minutes steadily undermines the props and shores set up by Berserk wrath, the solitary rifleman lies watchful and vigilant. Thrice in that interval have the attackers rallied; once in a desperate charge to gain the cover of the timber on the canyon's brink, and twice in equally desperate efforts to turn the rifleman's position by following the looping of the trail. Notwithstanding the bad marksmanship of the garrison the position has proved--still proves--impregnable; and the end of the half-hour leaguer finds the intrenched one secure in his position, with the enemy in permanent check, and only his own waning strength to warn him that the pass cannot be held indefinitely.