s an assurance
that the battle was over and the rest not far away.

On they drove, straight as a bird flies for Caswell City, and Black
Bart, ranging ahead among the hills, was picking the way once more. If
the stallion were tired, he gave no sign of it. The sweep of his stride
brushed him past rocks and shrubs, and he literally flowed uphill and
down, far different from the horses which scampered in his rear, for
they pounded the earth with their efforts, grunting under the weight of
fifty pound saddles and heavy riders. Another handicap checked them, for
while Satan ran on alone, freely, the bunched pursuers kept a continual
friction back and forth. The leaders reined in to keep back with the
mass of the posse, and those in the rear by dint of hard spurring would
rush up to the front in turn until some spirited nag challenged for the
lead, so that there was a steady interplay among the fifteen. Their gait
at the best could not be more than the pace, of their slowest member,
but even that pace was diminished by the difficulties of group riding.
Yet Mark Retherton refused to allow his men to scatter and stretch out.
He kept them in hand steadily, a bunched unit ready to strike together,
for he had seen the dead body of Pete Glass and he kept in mind a
picture of what might happen if this fellow should whirl and pick off
the posse man by man. Better prolong the run, for in the end no single
horse could stand up against so many relays. Yet it was maddening to
watch the stallion float over hill and dale with that same unbroken
stride.

Once and again he sent the fresh horses from Wago after the fugitive
in a sprinting burst, but each time the black drifted farther away, and
mile after mile Mark Retherton pulled his field glasses to his eyes and
strained his vision to make out some sign of labor in the gait of Satan.
There was no change. His head was still high, the rhythm of his lope
unfaltering.

But here the Wago Mountains--not more than ragged hills, to be sure--cut
across the path of the outlaw and in those hills, unless the message
which waited for him at Wago had been false, should be the men of
Caswell City, two score or more besides the fifteen fresh horses for the
posse. Two score of men, at least, Caswell could send out, and from
the heights they could surely detect the coming of Barry and plant
themselves in his way. An ambush, a volley, would end this famous ride.

The hills came up on them swiftly, now, an