King faction
could not stay, to where I was ambushed between the solid walls of two
sheds, with Shylock's bulk before me and Frosty swearing at my back.

"Horse hit?" snapped Perry Potter breathlessly. "I knowed it. Just like
yuh. Get onto this'n uh mine--he's the best in the bunch--and light
out--if yuh still want t' catch that train."

I came back from the primitive with a rush. I no longer wanted to kill and
kill. Dad was lying "critically ill" in Frisco--and Frisco was a long way
off! The miles between bulked big and black before me, so that I shivered
and forgot my quarrel with King. I must catch that train.

I went with one leap up into the saddle as Perry Potter slid down, thought
vaguely that I never could ride with the stirrups so short, but that there
was not time to lengthen them; took my feet peevishly out of them
altogether, and dashed down, that winding way between King's sheds and
corrals while the Ragged H boys kept King's men at bay, and the unmusical
medley of shots and yells followed us far in the darkness of the pass. At
the last fence, where we perforce drew rein to make a free passage for
our horses, I looked back, like one Mrs. Lot. A red glare lit the whole
sky behind us with starry sparks, shooting up higher into the low-hanging
crimson smoke-clouds. I stared, uncomprehending for a moment; then the
thought of her stabbed through my brain, and I felt a sudden horror. "And
Beryl's back among those devils!" I cried aloud, as I pulled my horse
around.

"_Beryl_"--Frosty laid peculiar stress upon the name I had let
slip--"isn't likely to be down among the sheds, where that fire is. Our
boys are collecting damages for Shylock, I guess; hope they make a good
job of it."

I felt silly enough just then to quarrel with my grandmother; I hate
giving a man cause for thinking me a love-sick lobster, as I'd no doubt
Frosty thought me. I led my horse over the wires he had let down, and we
went on without stopping to put them back on the posts. It was some time
before I spoke again, and, when I did, the subject was quite different;
I was mourning because I hadn't the _Yellow Peril_ to eat up the miles
with.

"What good would that do yuh?" Frosty asked, with a composure I could only
call unfeeling. "Yuh couldn't get a train, anyway, before the one yuh
_will_ get; motors are all right, in their place--but a horse isn't to be
despised, either. I'd rather be stranded with a tired horse than a
broken-down mot