ind a yell of dismay, and with a backward
glance he saw every man of the posse leaning forward and swinging his
quirt. An instant later half a dozen of the ragged little hills closed
between them.

Once fairly into the heart of the Morgans, he called the stallion back
from the racing stride to a long canter, and from the gallop to a rapid
trot, for in this broken country it was wearing on an animal to maintain
a lope up hill and down the quick, jerking falls. The cowpuncher hates
the trot, for his ponies are not built for it, but the deep play of
Satan's fetlock joints broke the hard impacts; his gait now was hardly
more jarring than the flow of the single-foot in an ordinary animal.

Black Bart, who had been running directly under the nose of the
stallion, now skirted away in the lead. Here and there he twisted among
the gullies at a racing clip, his head high, and always he picked out
the smoothest ground, the easiest rise, the gentlest descent which lay
more or less straight in the line of his master's flight. It cut down
the work of the stallion by half to have this swift, sure scout run
before and point out the path, yet it was stiff labor at the best and
Barry was glad when he came on the hard gravel of an old creek bed
cutting at right angels to his course.

From the first he had intended to run towards the Morgans only to
cover the true direction of his flight, and now, since the posse was
hopelessly left behind him, well out of hearing, he rode Satan into the
middle of the creek bed and swung him north.

It was bad going for a horse carrying a rider, and even the catlike
certainty of Satan's tread could not avoid sharp edges here and there
that might cut his hoofs. So Barry leaped to the ground and ran at
full speed down the bed. Behind him Satan followed, his ears pricked
uneasily, and Black Bart, at a signal from the master, dropped back and
remained at the first bend of the old, empty stream. In a moment they
wound out of sight even of Bart, but Barry kept steadily on. It would
take a magnifying glass to read his trail over those rocks.

He had covered a mile, perhaps, when Bart came scurrying again and
leaped joyously around the master.

"They've hit the creek, eh?" said Whistling Dan. "Well, they'll mill
around a while and like as not they'll run a course south to pick me up
agin."

He gestured toward the side, and as soon as Satan stood on the good
going once more, Barry swung into the saddle and