headed straight back
west. No doubt the posse would ride up and down the creek bed until
they found his trail turning back, but they would lose precious minutes
picking it up, and in the meantime he would be far, far away toward the
ford of Tucker Creek. Then, clearly, but no louder than the snapping of
a dry twig near his ear, he heard the report of a revolver and it spoke
to him of many things as the baffled posse rode up and down the creek
bed hunting for the direction of his escape. Some one had fired that
shot to relieve his anger.

He neither spoke to Satan nor struck him, but there was a slight leaning
forward, an imperceptible flexing of the leg muscles, and in response
the black sprang again into the swift trot which sent him gliding over
the ground, and twisting back and forth among the sharp-sided gullies
with a movement as smooth as the run of the wolf-dog, which once again
raced ahead.

When they came out in view of the rolling plain Barry stopped again and
glanced to the west and the north, while Black Bart ran to the top of
the nearest hill and looked back, an ever vigilant outpost. To the north
lay the fordable streams near Caswell City, and that way was perfect
safety, it seemed. Not perfect, perhaps, for Barry knew nothing of the
telephones by which the little bald headed clerk at the sheriff's office
was rousing the countryside, but if he struck toward Caswell City from
the Morgans, there was not a chance in ten that scouts would catch him
at the river which was fordable for mile after mile.

That way, then, lay the easiest escape, but it meant a long detour
out of the shortest course, which struck almost exactly west, skirting
dangerously close to Rickett. But, as Billy had presupposed, it was
the very danger which lured the fugitive. Behind him, entangled in
the gullies of the bad-lands, were the fifteen best men of the
mountain-desert. In front of him lay nothing except the mind of Billy
the clerk. But how could he know that?

Once again he swayed a little forward and this time the stallion swung
at once into his ranging gallop, then verged into a half-racing gait,
for Barry wished to get out of sight among the rolling ground before the
posse came out from the Morgan Hills on his back trail.

Chapter XXXI. The Trap

He had already covered a good ten miles, and a large part of that
through extremely rough going, but the black ran with his head as high
as the moment he pulled out of Ricket