re, but we'll find out soon!"

"Leave that confounded carbine," exclaimed Billinger, as the other rose
to mount. "I did rotten work with it, and the other fellow fixed me with
a pistol. That's why I'm not bleeding very much."

The outlaw had disappeared in the black edge of the Bad Lands when
Philip dashed up out of the dip into the plain. There was only one break
ahead of him, and toward this he urged his horse. In the entrance to the
break there was another sandy but waterless dip, and across this trailed
the hoof-prints of the outlaws' mounts, two at a walk--one at a gallop.
At one time, ages before, the break had been the outlet of a stream
pouring itself out between jagged and cavernous walls of rock from the
black heart of the upheaved country within. Now the bed of it was strewn
with broken trap and masses of boulders, cracked and dried by centuries
of blistering sun.

Philip's heart beat a little faster as he urged his horse ahead, and
not for an instant did his cocked revolver drop from its guard over the
mare's ears. He knew, if he overtook the outlaws in retreat, that there
would be a fight, and that it would be three against one. That was what
he hoped for. It was an ambush that he dreaded. He realized that if
the outlaws stopped and waited for him he would be at a terrible
disadvantage. In open fight he was confident His prairie-bred mount took
the rough trail at a swift canter, evading the boulders and knife-edged
trap in the same guarded manner that she galloped over prairie-dog and
badger holes out upon the plain. Twice in the ten minutes that followed
their entrance into the chasm Philip saw movement ahead of him, and each
time his revolver leaped to it. Once it was a wolf, again the swiftly
moving shadow of an eagle sweeping with spread wings between him and the
sun. He watched every concealment as he approached and half swung in his
saddle in passing, ready to fire.

A quick turn in the creek bed, where the rock walls hugged in close,
and his mare planted her forefeet with a suddenness that nearly sent him
over her head. Directly in their path, struggling to rise from among the
rocks, was a riderless horse. Two hundred yards beyond a man on foot was
running swiftly up the chasm, and a pistol shot beyond him two others on
horseback had turned and were waiting.

"Lord, if I had Billinger's gun now!" groaned Philip.

At the sound of his voice and the pressure of his heels in her flank
the mare vaul