found his wound was not bad. He plunged into the wheat on Quien Sabe,
making northward for a division house that rose with its surrounding
trees out of the wheat like an island. He reached it, the blood
squelching in his shoes. But the sight of two men, Portuguese
farm-hands, staring at him from an angle of the barn, abruptly roused
him to action. He sprang forward with peremptory commands, demanding a
horse.

At Guadalajara, Delaney and the sheriff descended from the freight
engine.

"Horses now," declared the sheriff. "He won't go into Bonneville, that's
certain. He'll leave the engine between here and there, and strike off
into the country. We'll follow after him now in the saddle. Soon as he
leaves his engine, HE'S on foot. We've as good as got him now."

Their horses, including even the buckskin mare that Dyke had ridden,
were still at the station. The party swung themselves up, Delaney
exclaiming, "Here's MY mount," as he bestrode the buckskin.

At Guadalajara, the two bloodhounds were picked up again. Urging the
jaded horses to a gallop, the party set off along the Upper Road,
keeping a sharp lookout to right and left for traces of Dyke's
abandonment of the engine.

Three miles beyond the Long Trestle, they found S. Behrman holding his
saddle horse by the bridle, and looking attentively at a trail that had
been broken through the standing wheat on Quien Sabe. The party drew
rein.

"The engine passed me on the tracks further up, and empty," said S.
Behrman. "Boys, I think he left her here."

But before anyone could answer, the bloodhounds gave tongue again, as
they picked up the scent.

"That's him," cried S. Behrman. "Get on, boys."

They dashed forward, following the hounds. S. Behrman laboriously
climbed to his saddle, panting, perspiring, mopping the roll of fat over
his coat collar, and turned in after them, trotting along far in the
rear, his great stomach and tremulous jowl shaking with the horse's
gait.

"What a day," he murmured. "What a day."

Dyke's trail was fresh, and was followed as easily as if made on
new-fallen snow. In a short time, the posse swept into the open
space around the division house. The two Portuguese were still there,
wide-eyed, terribly excited.

Yes, yes, Dyke had been there not half an hour since, had held them up,
taken a horse and galloped to the northeast, towards the foothills at
the headwaters of Broderson Creek.

On again, at full gallop, through the young