d the same shuddery feeling
that came to me the night I stooped over Hans Rutter and gasped at sight
of what the fiends had done. MacRae whitened, but the full import of
Piegan's words stunned him to silence. The bare possibility of Lyn Rowan
being at the dubious mercy of those ruthless brutes was something that
called for more than mere words. He hesitated only a moment, nervously
twisting the saddle-strings with one hand, then straightened up and tore
loose the cinch fastening.

After that outburst of Piegan's no one spoke. While Mac and I
transferred our saddles to the Baker horses, Piegan swung down from his
gray and, opening the pack on the horse we had been leading, took out a
little bundle of flour and bacon and coffee and tied it behind the
cantle of his saddle. A frying-pan and coffee-pot he tossed to me. Then
we mounted and took to the trail again, stripped down to fighting-trim,
unhampered by a pack-horse.

Of daylight there yet remained a scant two hours in which we could hope
to distinguish a hoof-mark. Piegan leaned over his saddle-horn and took
hills and hollows, wherever the trail led, with a rush that unrolled the
miles behind us at a marvelous rate. For an hour we galloped silently,
matching the speed of fresh, wiry horses against the dying day, no sound
arising in that wilderness of brown coulee banks and dun-colored prairie
but the steady beat of hoofs, and the purr of a rising breeze from the
east. Then I became aware that Piegan, watching the ground through
half-closed eyelids, was speaking to us. From riding a little behind, to
give him room to trail, we urged our horses alongside.

"Them fellers at Baker's camp," he said, without looking up, "would 'a'
come in a holy minute if there'd been hosses for 'em t' ride. But they
only had enough saddle-stock along t' wrangle the bulls--an' I took
three uh the best they had. Three of us is enough, anyhow. We kain't
ride up on them fellers now an' go t' shootin'. They're all together
again. I seen, back a ways, where them two hoss-tracks angled back from
the spring. They must 'a' laid up at that camp we passed till sometime
before daylight--seein' that damned Hicks come t' Baker's early this
mornin'. An' if they didn't travel very fast t'-day--which ain't likely,
'cause they probably figure they're dead safe, and their track don't
show a fast gait--there's just a chance that we'll hit 'em by dark if we
burn the earth. We're good for thirty miles before n