Even in spite of her history Vic would have engaged Grey Molly to beat the
roan at equal weights, but since he outbulked the sheriff full forty
pounds, he weighed in nice balance the necessity of shooting the roan
before he left Alder. It was, he decided, unpleasant but vital, and his
fingers had already slid around the butt of his gun when a horse whinnied
far off and the roan twitched up her head to listen. She was no longer a
cloddish lump of horseflesh, but an individual, a soul; Gregg's hand fell
from his gun. Cursing his sentimental weakness, he lifted Molly into a
canter down the street. Still no signs of awakening behind him or about;
only little Jack Sweeney playing tag with a black-and-tan puppy, the
triumphant cackle of a hen somewhere to the left; but as he neared the end
of the street, where the trail swung into the rocks of the slope, a door
banged far off and a voice was screaming: "Pete! Pete Glass!"
Grey Molly switched her tail nervously at the shout, but Vic was too wise
to let her waste strength hurrying up so sharp a declivity; that dusty roan
whose life he had spared would be spending it prodigally to overtake him
before long and Molly's power must be husbanded.
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