ght you were hurt!" she exclaimed.

"Nope! I guess not. I was scared, I guess. Let's watch 'em, Miss!" And
forgetful of his bruised and shaken body, he limped to the edge of the
meadow, followed by Louise. "There they go!" he cried. "Red's 'way
ahead. The sheriff gent can't shoot again--he's too busy ridin'."

"Boyar! Boyar! Good horse! Good horse!" cried the girl as the black pony
flashed across the steep slope of the ragged mountain side like a winged
thing. "Boyar! Boy!"

She shivered as the loose shale, ploughed by the pony's flying hoofs,
slithered down the slope at every plunge.

"Can he ride?" shouted Collie, wild tears of joy in his eyes.

Suddenly Overland, glancing back, saw Tenlow stop and raise his arm. The
tramp cowboy swung Black Boyar half-round, and driving his unspurred
heels into the pony's ribs, put him straight down the terrific slope of
the mountain at a run.

Tenlow's gun cracked. A spray of dust rose instantly ahead of Boyar.

"Look! Look!" cried Louise. The deputy, angered out of his usual
judgment, spurred his horse directly down the footless shale that the
tramp had ridden across diagonally. "Look! He can't--The horse--! Oh!"
she groaned as Tenlow's pony stumbled and all but pitched headlong. "The
other man--knew better than that--" she gasped, turning to the boy. "He
waited--till he struck rock and brush before he turned Boyar."

"Can he ride?" shouted Collie, grinning. But the grin died to a gasp. A
burst of shale and dust shot up from the hillside. They saw the flash of
the cinchas on the belly of Tenlow's horse as the dauntless pony
stumbled and dove headlong down the slope, rolling over and over, to
stop finally--a patch of brown, shapeless, quivering.

Below, Overland Red had curbed Boyar and was gazing up at a spot of
black on the hillside--Dick Tenlow, motionless, silent. His sombrero lay
several yards down the slope.

"Oh! The horse!" cried Louise, chokingly, with her hand to her breast.

As for Dick Tenlow, lying halfway down the hillside, stunned and
shattered, she had but a secondary sympathy. He had sacrificed a gallant
and willing beast to his anger. The tramp, riding a strange pony over
desperately perilous and unfamiliar ground, had used judgment. "Your
friend is a man!" she said, turning to the boy. "But Dick Tenlow is
hurt--perhaps killed. He went under the horse when it fell."

"I guess it's up to us to see if the sheriff gent is done for, at that,"
said the boy.