smoke! Hobbs was not a physical coward, but it took more than a mile of
hard-ridden conscience to bring his horse to a standstill. Then, with
his heart in his mouth, he slowly began to retrace his steps, walking
where he had galloped a moment before. A turn in the road brought him in
view of something that caused him to draw rein sharply. A hundred yards
ahead, five or six men were struggling with a riderless bay horse.

"My Gawd!" ejaculated Hobbs. "It's _his_ horse! I might have known!"

He looked eagerly for his patron. There was no sign of him, so Hobbs
rode slowly forward, intent upon asking the woodmen--for such they
appeared to be--to accompany him to the glen, now but a short distance
ahead.

As he drew nearer, it struck him forcibly that the men were not what he
had thought them to be. They were an evil-looking lot, more like the
strikers he had seen in the town earlier in the day. Even as he was
turning the new thought over in his mind, one of them stepped out of
the little knot, and, without a word of warning, lifted his arm and
fired point blank at the little Englishman. A pistol ball whizzed close
by his head. His horse leaped to the side of the road in terror, almost
unseating him.

But Hobbs had fighting blood in his veins. What is more to the point, he
had a Mauser revolver in his pocket. He jerked it out, and, despite a
second shot from the picket, prepared to ride down upon the party. An
instant later half a dozen revolvers were blazing away at him. Hobbs
turned at once and rode in the opposite direction, whirling to fire
twice at the unfriendly group. Soon he was out of range and at leisure.
He saw the futility of any attempt to pass them. The only thing left for
him to do was to ride as quickly as possible to the city and give the
alarm: at the same time, to acquaint the police with the deliberate
assault of the desperadoes.

His mind was so full of the disaster to Truxton King--he did not doubt
for an instant that he had been destroyed by the sorceress--that he gave
little thought to his own encounter with the rascals in the roadway. He
had come to like the impetuous young man with the open purse and the
open heart. Despite his waywardness in matters conventional to the last
degree he could not but admire him for the smile he had and the courage
that never failed him, even when the smile met the frown of rebuke.

Riding swiftly through the narrow, sunless defile he was nearing the
point wher