rance, but neither of the
youths was touched. The Sioux must have found it equally hard to fire
with their animals on a full run.

"Why don't the spalpeens save their powder?" was the disgusted question
of Tim, but his feelings changed a minute later, when his own pony
showed by his actions that he had been hit hard. He uttered a low,
moaning cry, and staggered as if about to fall.

Warren was the first to notice it.

"Tim, Billy is going to drop; ride closer and mount Jack behind me."

"Not a bit of it! I'll see you hanged first," was the characteristic
reply of the brave fellow, who sturdily refused to heed the urgent
appeal of his friend.

"Why not?"

"Jack can't carry us both."

"He can until we reach the ridge."

"But we're not going toward it," insisted Tim, too observant to be
deceived.

"Turn Billy's head that way," said Warren, growing desperate in the
imminence of the peril, and swerving his pony to the right; "Jack can
carry us both as well as one."

Still the Irishman hesitated. It might be as his companion said, but he
was unwilling to imperil Warren, and destroy the chances of both, when
everything looked so favorable for one.

Meanwhile, the stricken Billy was fast giving out. He struggled gamely,
but it was evident that he must quickly succumb. At the most, he could
go but a short distance farther.

The Sioux fired again, but nothing was accomplished. If Jack was hit, he
did not show it during the few seconds that his rider held his breath.

Still Tim held back in the face of the pleadings of his friend. Two
discoveries, however, led him to yield.

They were now heading straight for the ridge, which was barely half a
mile distant. It must soon be attained, unless something happened to
Jack. The foremost Sioux had fallen so perceptibly behind that there was
reason to believe the horse could carry both riders to safety, or rather
to the refuge which they hoped to find at the base of the ridge.

"I'll do the same, being it's yerself that asks it----"

"Quick! Billy is falling!" called Warren, far more excited than his
companion.

The crisis had come. The poor animal could go no farther, and was
swaying from side to side like a drunken person, certain to fall with
the next minute.

Tim released his foot from the stirrup on his right, swung his leg over
the saddle, as only a skilful horseman can do, and, holding his gun with
one hand, grasped the outstretched one of Warren and made a s