o flight, and the sergeant's
face grew grimmer as the sound reached his ears.

"Keep right in the middle of the road, boys," he said. "We can't afford
to have our horses slip. I'll hang back just a little and send in a
bullet if they come too near. This rifle of mine carries pretty far,
farther, I expect, than any of theirs."

"I'm somethin' on the shoot myself," said Red Blaze. "I love peace, but
it hurts my feelin's if anybody shoots at me. Them fellers are likely
to do it, an' me havin' a rifle in my hands I won't be able to stop the
temptation to fire back."

As he spoke the raiders fired. There was a crackling of rifles, little
curls of blue smoke rose in the pass, and bullets struck on the frozen
earth, while two made the snow fly from bushes by the side of the road.
The sergeant raised his own rifle, longer of barrel than the average
army weapon, and pulled the trigger. He had aimed at Skelly, but the
leader swerved, and a man behind him rolled off his horse. The others,
although slowing their speed a little, in order to be out of the range
of that deadly rifle, continued to come.

The pursuit at first seemed futile to Dick, because they would soon
descend into Townsville's valley, and the raiders could not follow them
into the midst of an entire regiment. But presently he saw their plan.
The pass now widened out with a few hundred yards of level space on
either side of the road thickly covered with forest. The branches of the
trees were bare, but the undergrowth was so dense that horsemen could be
hidden in it. Bands of the raiders darted into the woods both to right
and left, and he knew that advancing on a straight line one or the
other of the parties expected to catch the fugitives who must follow the
curves of the road.

The advantage of the pursuit was soon shown as a shot from the right
whistled by them. Red Blaze, quick as lightning, fired at the flash of
the rifle.

"I don't know whether I hit him or not," he said, judicially, "but the
chances are pow'ful good that I did. Still it looks as if they meant to
hang on an' likely we kin soon expect shots from the other side, too.
Then if they know the country as well as they 'pear to do they'll have
us clamped in a vise."

As he spoke his eyes twinkled cheerfully out of his flaming countenance.

"You certainly seem to take it easy," said Dick.

"I take it easy, 'cause the jaws of that vise ain't goin' to clamp down.
Bein' somewhat interested in a r