“I turned about in the saddle. Half the sky had turned into an open furnace! Above me a great stormy ocean of blood rolled on into the twilight of the east! Blood!—a seething, billowy sea of red blood, with great, red, purring cat-tongues lapping it greedily! Gaudy giant flowers—purple, yellow, red, green—bloomed for a moment in a strange garden of dreams, and nodded in the wind and fell and bloomed again and fell! The infernal beauty of the thing fascinated me for a moment. Then I heard the rumbling—the unceasing thunder. It was louder than before. I thought of the ten thousand sharp hoofs gaining, gaining, with whips of fire lashing them in the rear. And then I thought of the Kid back there. “My heart sickened. The hot wind that scorched my face accused me; the choking air accused me. I could see him lying on his face even then with the mad hoofs beating him into a pulp; I could see the writhing of his body as the heat increased; I could smell the stench of his sizzling flesh! “I reeled in the saddle, yet the mad wish to live lashed my hands to the pommel. But this was only for a moment. The meanest worm that ever wriggled in a dunghill holds fast to his life. I forgot the Kid again; I remembered only myself and that I must ride to win. I pulled the horse down and held him steady. Never did I throw a leg across a better horse than the Kid’s—honest, rangy, clean-limbed and deep in the chest! My heart leaped with joy when I heard his long even breathing. I had a great delirious love for the big-hearted brute as I felt his long, even reach, the tireless rhythmic stride that throws the miles behind. The drifting red sea of smoke above cast the wild glare down upon the prairie and made the footing sure. I threw my guns away; I stripped off my coat and gave it to the wind. I knew what an extra pound might mean. “An elk forged slowly past, his wide antlers tipped with light. An antelope sprang up and bounded away into the twilight ahead. A coyote leaped from a shoe-string clump; he cowered and whined like a whipped dog with his tail between his legs, then raced away down the wind. Snorting shadows began to move to right and left in the further gloom and disappear in the smoke-drift. I was now a part of the ragged edge of the flotsam tossed up by the approaching lip of the flood. I gave my horse another inch of rein and held him steady. The thunder in the rear grew louder; I could hear dimly the wild confusion of animal cries. I was the fox hearing the yelp of the hounds and racing for cover.