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might have stopped to refresh himself or enforce a change of horses.

With every mile of the hard-pressed journey, every passing hour of the long, dragging, blank-dark night, Sid Coburn's hope sank lower. His courage died in him and his heart turned cold, but he held on southward to the appointed place of meeting, not dreaming, certainly, that Tom Simpson's horse had circled back when given the rein, and was heading at the same time in a direction almost exactly opposite that of the supposed pursuit.