have got to fight, or
ride for it."

"Let us fight!" exclaimed Sack Todd, but this proposition was voted
down, as it was not known how many were after the evildoers.

Sack Todd was the last man to leap into the saddle. As he did so, he
gritted his teeth hard.

"They shan't capture me!" he muttered. "I am not to be taken alive!"

Away went the crowd at a breakneck speed, Dan Baxter in their midst.
But at the first opportunity the bully turned to the southward and
he disappeared when a patch of timber was gained.

"This is too hot for me," he muttered. "I guess the best thing I can
do is to get out of this neighborhood and skip for parts unknown for
a while." And then he urged his horse still further to the southward,
until the mists in a swamp in the midst of the timber hid him completely
from view.

Having escaped from his captors, Sam hardly knew what to do, but, as
he heard a number of shots fired, he made up his mind that help must
be at hand, and so he hurried back on the trail, and presently came
in sight of the other boys. Then he set up a mad shout of joy, which
they quickly echoed.

"Are you perfectly safe, Sam?" asked Dick, riding up.

"Yes, although I had a narrow escape," and the youngest Rover pointed
to where the bullet had grazed his shoulder. "What of the others?"

"All safe and sound," sang out Tom, coming up. "And James Monday and
a big posse are after Sack Todd and his crowd hot-footed."

"Shall we join in?" asked Songbird.

"I can't go another step," answered Dick. "I am more than tired,"
and he sank in a heap on the saddle.

"You boys stay here, and we'll fix those rascals," cried a man of
the posse. "You have done enough."

"I guess we have," said Tom. "We are safe and sound, and that is the
main thing, so far as we are concerned."

Here let me add a few words more and then bring to a close this tale
of "The Rover Boys on the Plains."

Utterly worn out, the boys remained where they were until noon of
the day which was now dawning. At a great distance, they heard pistol
and gun shots, and they knew that some sort of a fight must be going on.

They were just preparing to move for town, when they saw two of the
posse returning with three prisoners, each disarmed and with his
hands bound behind him. One of the prisoners was Puller and another
Andy Jimson.

"We are going to get most of them," said one of the posse to the
boys. "But they are a pretty desperate lot."

The prisone