lver jumped out into his hand.

"I call upon you to give yourself up!" he shouted. "Stop, Red, or I
shoot this time!"

[Illustration: "I call upon you to give yourself up!" he shouted.
"Stop, Red, or I shoot this time!"]

Dart held a trimmed branch in his hand and as MacKelvey called Dart
struck. The blow fell heavily upon the sheriff's wrist. MacKelvey
cursed, wheeled his horse and without heeding Dart shouted again to
Shandon.

Venable and Denbigh, forewarned by Dart's quick whispered words, had
their eyes upon Shandon. They ran to the line that marked the start
and stood, one at each end of it, their eyes bright, their hands
pointing so that Shandon's start should be fair. And Shandon, tossing
back his head as he rode, rushed down towards them, shot between them,
turned down the knoll after Hume.

The gun in MacKelvey's hand spat flame and lead. The bullet, aimed
high, hissed above Shandon's head.

"Stop!" cried the sheriff lustily, driving his spurs into his own
horse's sides and dashing across the line between Venable and Denbigh.
"By God, Red, I'll kill you!"

"Give him a chance, man!" bellowed Big Bill, his voice shaking, his
face red. "Look at that damned cur Hume."

Hume had seen and again had turned, was bending over his horse's neck,
using his spurs in the first start of his surprise. The men over
yonder had an inkling of what was happening and their glasses were
turned steadily upon the knoll.

Shandon without turning, laughed aloud, all the relief after months of
hiding breaking out into laughter that was utterly unlike the sound
that had come so short a time ago from Hume's contemptuous lips. It
was a great, boyish, carefree, reckless laugh that made men wonder.

"Next time, Mac," he shouted back. "Ten to one you can't catch me
before I beat Hume to it!"

Almost in his own words of many months ago Big Bill was muttering
softly,

"God! What a pair of them!"

More than a quarter of a mile away Sledge Hume, his jaws hard set, his
eyes burning ominously, was racing on, saving his horse a little now.
Down the knoll drove Red Shandon, rushing on his race with a handicap
in front and a revolver spitting its menace behind. Fifty yards after
him, his face as hard as Hume's, came MacKelvey, thundering along on
his big rawboned sorrel, the sheriff whom men already criticised for
not making an arrest.

Upon the ridge where the signal men were, the levelled glasses were
dropped as anothe