He wanted to lift the white cloth but dared not. He went round the body to the shelf where he knew the cartridges were kept. He put a handful in his pocket and then went out with his eyes straight before him. But he still saw the white cloth. When he was outside he loaded the gun in both barrels and clambered on the old sorrel with great difficulty. As he rode he swayed to and fro in the saddle. But he had to catch Mary, had to stop her. That notion was all the thought in him. It helped to keep him from falling off. Yet he rode like a drunken man, and the landscape reeled and shifted and danced. The big bull-pines swayed as if there were a great wind and the road was sometimes a double track. Yet far ahead of him he saw a figure on a horse. It must be Mary. He clutched the gun and the horn of the saddle and spurred the old sorrel with a solitary Mexican spur which he had borrowed in the town. And as he rode the world began to settle down before him at last. Though his head was splitting he rode without his hat. It lay in red dust by Ned's house. At first he went at a walk, but presently he urged the sorrel to a reluctant lope. The figure before him loped too. He saw he made little headway. He put the sorrel into a gallop and knew that he gained on her who now hated him. It was unjust of her: what he had done was for her, not for himself. Ned had hurt her horribly. Pete couldn't understand her. She appeared to love the man who had cut her down. It was foolish, strange. And she meant to have him "hanged." That was the last spur to him: his vision cleared and became normal. The shifting planes of the terraced land in front of him sat down at last. He drove the spur into the sorrel brutally and set him at a furious gallop. He knew the horse that Mary rode was tired: it was not much of a cayuse at any time. He saw her plainly now. And then she looked round and saw a horseman coming furiously. What horseman it was she knew not. Yet it might be Pete, though he was disabled. She made her horse gallop: she flogged him with a heavy quirt that hung to Pete's saddle. But the man behind her gained. She saw him coming in front of a cloud of white dust. She looked back through dust. But perhaps it wasn't Pete. Then she knew the action of the old sorrel, and panic got hold of her. It was Pete. Yes, that was certain. She screamed to her horse, and struck him hard. Now she heard above the sound of his hoofs upon the road the following echo-like thud of the sorrel as he crept up to her. She topped a little rise and raced down hill recklessly. Behind her now there was a moment's cessation of the following sound. Then she heard it again and looking back saw Pete come down the hill. He was within a quarter of a mile of her and she was not yet half-way to Kamloops!