He brought out his horse, tightened the cinch and led him toward the roan. He tied Tom's boots to his own saddle and then without looking at the man he had come to kill and who he was leaving bound, waterless, without boots or a horse, twenty miles from the first help, he lashed the roan with his quirt, sharply about the head and, when the big creature wheeled in surprise, about the hocks. Kicking, frightened, stepping on the reins and breaking them off, Beck's horse ran away. Ran scot free, head up, out to the eastward, abused and headed for home. He began to buck, pitching desperately. The saddle worked back and under and down. He kicked it free. Somewhere between the tank and that fallen saddle, Beck knew was his canteen. But McKee did not know. He mounted and stuck into the wash through which he had ridden hours before, lashing the gray to a gallop, putting distance between his menace, his shame.... And back in the tank as night came on a man for whom every move was torment rolled and wriggled from place to place, searching doggedly for a ragged rock, among those that were water-worn and smooth. The buzzard had ceased his wheeling, the stars came out. Beck talked aloud rather crazily. Everything seemed smooth; even the pain became less harsh; everything was soft and easy ... remarkably so.... Until his cheek felt a ragged, narrow edge of rock, close in against the base of the tallest spire. Moaning feebly he wriggled against it until the ropes touched the edge. Then, with great labor, he began to writhe and twist. It took hours to fray out a single strand, and his arms were bound by many ... hours.... And when finally his arms fell apart, sensations, fiendish, killing sensations, began to stab through them, he laughed lightly and ended shortly. He was free!... Free? * * * * * Just at that time back in the HC ranch house a woman rose from her tumbled bed and dressed. Her eyes were dry though her breath came unevenly. She looked into her mirror as she put on her hat. "You're a fool!" she cried lowly. "A fool!... False pride has taken two days out of your life ... two precious days!" She ran down the stairs, out to the corral and saddled her sorrel horse. CHAPTER XXV A MOUNTAIN PORTIA It was a long ride from the HC to the round-up camp but the sorrel was not spared. The impulse that sent Jane Hunter through the last hours of darkness had only accumulated strength before the resistance which had held it back through those dragging days. She was on her way to her lover, to explain in a word the situation that had caused the breach between them; she had fought down the pride of which that resistance was made and now her every thought, her every want was to make Beck know that it was humiliation and injured pride rather than infidelity which had sent him away.