When his hoofs
struck a loose rock he no longer had the easy recoil of the morning. He
staggered like a graceful yacht chopped by a cross-current. Now down the
slope, now back to the roar of the Asper once more, for there the going was
most level, but always the strides were shortening, shortening, and the
head of the stallion nodded at his work.
All that was seen by Mark Retherton through his glasses, though they were
almost close enough now to see details through the naked eye. He turned in
the saddle to the posse, grim faces, sweat and dust clotted in their
moustaches, their faces drawn and gray with streaks over the nose and under
the eyes where perspiration ran. They rode crookedly, now, for seventy
miles at full speed had racked them, twisted them, cramped their muscles.
Scotty kept his head tilted far back, for his spinal column seemed about to
snap. Walsh leaned to his right side which a tormenting pain drew at every
stride, and Hendricks cursed in gasps through a wry mouth. It had been an
hour since Mark Retherton last spoke, and when he attempted it now his
voice was as hoarse as a croaking frog.
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