aight out where he was likely to find a speedy death in the
engulfing sands.

"Stop, Ashby! Come back!" shouted a dozen voices. "You'll be swallowed
up in the quick-sands."

Brave as they were, the pursuers now rein up sharply. It seemed to them
sheer madness to ride out thus to their certain deaths.

"Ashby is crazy, all right," remarked bronzed man. "None but an insane
man would ride out there."

Somewhat tardily automobile parties started in pursuit. These vehicles
were halted at the edge of the quicksand. Tom and Harry had also come
this far.

In the background the halted crowd watched in suspense as George Ashby
galloped over the treacherous sand.

Several times the pony's hoofs were seen to sink, yet each time the
animal seemed able to draw his feet out of the sand and go on again.

"It's a crazy man's luck," cried an Arizona man thickly. "Of course,
here and there on the Man-killer there are safe, sound spots, and Ashby
is having the luck of his life in hitting all the sound spots in getting
across. But I wouldn't follow him for a thousand dollars a minute!"

The mad hotel man was soon lost to view on the other side of one of the
little hills of sand.

There would have been little sense in trying to follow him or to head
him off, even by more roundabout courses. Ashby was now far enough away
to elude any pursuit that might start.

"I wonder if Reade has any idea of what he's up against now?" murmured
the mayor of Paloma. "That crazy man is loose, and sooner or later he'll
be heard from again."

CHAPTER XX. DUFF PROMISES THE "SQUARE DEAL"

Altogether the day had been a hugely satisfactory one to the young chief
engineer.

The first test had been made, and, all had passed off well, for, in Tom
Reade's easy-going, fearless mind the peculiar doings of George Ashby
did not figure at all as a part of the day's work.

"Harry, we've every reason to feel proud of ourselves" mused Tom aloud,
as he undressed in the shack that night.

"You feel pretty certain that we've conquered the Man-killer, do you?"
Hazelton asked, as he laid down the book he had been reading.

Of late, since the burning of the Cactus House, the chums had slept in
the shack, though still getting many of their meals in town.

"Oh, of course you know that we haven't won, the whole fight yet," Reade
went on. "We've plenty of work to do here still before we pronounce
the job finished. But to-day's shows that our plan for filling