lver in those days no gentleman's trousers fitted
comfortably without a pistol stuck in the waistband. Therefore, the
flying desperadoes received as hot a fire as they sent. By this fire
Cleveland's horse was killed before they got out of town, but one of his
pals stopped and picked him up.

Instantly the town was in an uproar of excitement. Every one knew that
the capture of these men meant a fight to the death. As usual in such
emergencies, there were more talkers than fighters. Nevertheless, six
men were in pursuit as soon as they could saddle and mount. The first to
start was the driver of an express wagon, a man named Jackson, who cut
his horse loose from the traces, mounted bareback, and flew out of town
only a few hundred yards behind the prisoners. Six others, led by
Charlie Shannon and La Fer, were not far behind Jackson. The men of this
party were greatly surprised to find that a Boston boy of twenty, a
tenderfoot lately come to town, who had scarcely ever ridden a horse or
fired a rifle, was among their number, well mounted and armed--a man with
a line of ancestry worth while, and himself a worthy survival of the best
of it.

The chase was hot. Jackson was well in advance, engaging the fugitives
with his pistol, while the fugitives were returning the fire and throwing
up puffs of dust all about Jackson. Behind spurred Shannon and his party.

At length the pursuit gained. Five miles out of Silver, in the Pinon
Hills to the northwest, too close pressed to run farther, the fugitives
sprang from their horses and ran into a low post oak thicket covering
about two acres, where, crouching, they could not be seen. The six
pursuers sent back a man to guide the sheriff's party and hasten
reinforcements, and began shelling the thicket and surrounding it. A few
minutes later Whitehill rode up with seven more men, and the thicket was
effectually surrounded. To the surprise of every one, a hot fire poured
into the thicket failed to bring a single answering shot. Whitehill was
no man to waste ammunition on such chance firing, so he ordered a charge.
His little command rode into and through the thicket at full speed, only
to find their quarry gone, gone all save one. The Mexican lay dead, shot
through the head! Kit's party had dashed through the thicket without
stopping, on to another, and their trail was shortly found leading up a
rugged canon of the Pinos Altos Range.

Whitehill divided his party. Thre