Before he got to the pitch of the road he turned in his saddle and looked back. He saw the dark patch that the dead horse made. He saw the cattle coming to find out what the unusual spectacle meant, for their curiosity was insatiable. Some already stood, staring and tossing their heads, in a half-circle round Mary and the horse. Soon all the world would be in a circle round the victims! Where was he to go and how was he to act? He pulled up suddenly and put his hand to his aching head. If he went into Kamloops as he was, with a horse all flaked with foam, and with his own ear bleeding, all the little world of the town would be agog to know what had happened. And yet if he hid till dark, some would find Mary, perhaps dead, upon the open road. Someone might go to the shack and discover Ned. It was hard to know how to act. He remembered for the first time that he had a bottle in his pocket. He asked advice of that: it sent him flying down the road to Kamloops. It was best to risk things, best not to wait, not to dodge or to hide. His only chance was to get down to the coast and out of the country. To get north to the Columbia and then to Sand Point through Kootenay, practically the only alternative route out, was impossibly dangerous. And as he rode he saw a steamboat coming down the river from the Lakes. If he rode hard he might catch it and get away before a word was said. As he rode he bound up his head and ear with a big coloured handkerchief. It was red enough to hide the oozing blood. It was an hour or more after noon when he rode into Kamloops. He came in at a lope and took on a careless air, calling "Klahowya" to some of his tilikums as they passed him. He even saluted a mounted policeman and went by him singing till he came to Alexander's, where he had got his horse from. He had to explain how he came back on Ned Quin's instead of the one he hired. But the stableman, who knew he had hired out a wretched crock, was easy enough to satisfy. "That damned kieutan fell with me," said Pete, swaggering, "fell at an easy lope and burst my ear. I left him at Ned Quin's, sonny, and Ned'll bring him in to-molla and fetch out this old sorrel. Here's four bits for you." He had paid the hire before he took out the horse that now lay dead upon the road. He heard the steamer's whistle at the nigh wharf and ran to catch her. In ten minutes he was on his way down stream to the Ferry. He knew it would be, or so easily might be, "a close call" for him. And yet there was nothing else to do but to risk it. As the cool air of the river struck him he shivered. For he thought he had killed Ned Quin and, now that the heat went out of his blood, chilling the fever of revenge in him, he began to be very much afraid. But he took a drink.