The Forfeit. Cullum Ridgwell

thick bush, and the tension she was laboring under took her through it in a fraction of the time her first traversing had been made. Her pony was standing within ten yards of the spot at which she had left him.

      She breathed a great relief. In a moment she had unbuckled the hobbles on his forelegs. Then, with the habit of her life on the plains, she tightened the cinchas of the saddle. Then she replaced the bit in its mouth.

      As she swung herself into the saddle the distant plod of hoofs pounding the cattle tracks reached her. For one instant she sat in doubt. Then, with a half-thought fear lest her hard pursuit of the wounded deer had left her tough broncho spent, she swung him about and vanished like a ghost into the gloomy depths of the woods.